Translation and Validation of the Filipino Version of the University of Washington Quality of Life Questionnaire (UW-QOL) for Patients with Head and Neck Cancer

ABSTRACT Objective: To translate the University of Washington Quality of Life (UW-QOL) questionnaire into Filipino and to validate it among a sample of patients with head and neck cancer. Methods: Design: Cross-sectional study Setting: Tertiary Government Training Hospital Participants: 33 patients   Results: A total of 33 patients were recruited in this study. Eighteen (54.5%) were male, and 15 (45.5%) were female aged 24-79 years old (mean age 52.85 ± 11.81 years old) completed the study. All items in the Filipino translation of the UW-QOL had a content validity index. The raters in face validation had 100% agreement in almost all items except for the appropriateness of font size and space of the questionnaire. The Cronbach’s alpha of the Filipino version of the questionnaire was 0.8596. The alpha score when each of the items was deleted remained within the range of 0.83 – 0.86. The intraclass correlation coefficients of all items were greater than 0.9. For all items, there were no significant difference observed between the test and retest scores. Conclusion: This study showed that the Filipino translation of the UW-QOL is culturally adapted, internally consistent and stable. It is as reliable as the original English version in assessing health related QOL, and valid for assessing HR-QOL among patients with head and neck cancers.