Report on Pilot Testing of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC QLQ-C30 y QLQ-B23) Questionnaire translated into local Spanish (ECUADOR) FIRST PART

Abstract

The European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Quality of Life Questionnaire (QLQ) has sent to us a Spanish (from Spain) translation of the questionnaires QLQ-C30 and QLQ-B23. Altogether, the questionnaires contain 53 items numbered from 1 to 53. The first 30 items, from 1 to 30, correspond to questionnaire QLQ-C30 and the remaining items, from 31 to 53, correspond to QLQ-B23. We first examined each questionnaire to find out if any of the items needed reformulation for adaptation to Spanish from Ecuador. We later used these questionnaires to interview 10 female outpatients with breast cancer from SOLCA (Sociedad de Lucha Contra el Cáncer) Hospital, located in Riobamba city, province of Chimborazo, Ecuador. Since SOLCA is a regional hospital in Chimborazo, outpatients from different places in Ecuador attend this hospital. We registered information from each of the 10 patients interviewed, according to Instructional Manual from the EORTC group. This information includes: patient identification (ID) or clinical history record number, age, profession or occupation, number of years since diagnosis, and type of surgical intervention, additional treatment, and stage of the disease. After these interviews we obtained a first modified version of the questionnaires from the pilot study, including patients’ suggestions. This pilot study serves to identify possible difficulties understanding the questions, or errors due to their formulation and grammatical construction, that may originate confusion. We identified difficulties associated to some words, questions that may have caused some discomfort, or that were unpleasant or unease to the person interviewed, and we asked for alternatives ways of phrasing the questions or to suggest how it should be asked to make it completely understandable.