The Italian version of the Functional Disability Index of the Health Assessment Questionnaire. A reliable instrument for multicenter studies on rheumatoid arthritis

A working group often rheumatology institutes (UNIREUM) was formed in Italy to promote multicenter therapeutic studies on rheumatoid arthritis. The Functional Disability Index (FDI) of the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) was chosen as a measure of disability. This paper reports the results of a multicenter study to validate an Italian translation of the instrument and to assess its reliability and validity. Two questions were modified to achieve cross-cultural equivalence. Back-translation into English showed agreement with the American instrument. Reproducibility was high: the test-retest correlation coeffcient was 0.989 and ranged from 0.81 to 0.99 for the centers taken separately. Validity was confirmed by a correlation coeffcient of 0.95 between the patient self-attributed and the physician-attributed FDI scores. We conclude that our Italian version of the HAQ FDI is a reliable and valid self-administered instrument.