Validation of the Raynaud’s Condition Score in Argentina

Objective: the aim of our study was to adapt and validate the Raynaud’s Condition Score (RCS) in patients with Systemic Sclerosis (SSc) who attend a public hospital in Argentina. Materials and Methods: for adaptation, rheumatologists translated to Spanish the original version in English. To assess the construct validity we used: Health Assesment Questionnaire (HAQ), Duruöz´s Hand Index (DHI), spanish validation for Argentina, Raynaud Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) by an expert and Modified Rodnan skin score (mRSS).To assess reproducibility, a subgroup of patients was randomly evaluated with no changes in treatment or clinical condition ten days after the baseline evaluation. Results: A total of 35 patients with SSc were included. The correlation between RCS and Raynaud VAS by an expert was 0.89; RCS and HAQ 0.58; RCS and mRSS 0.61; RCS and DHI 0.57 indicating a very good correlation mainly between the studied Score and the Raynaud VAS and being all statistically significant. The reproducibility was 0.998. Conclusion: The results show that the RCS is a reliable and valid tool for this argentinian population with SSc.