Cross cultural adaptation of the Greek sarcopenia quality of life (SarQoL) questionnaire

Purpose: To translate and validate into the Greek language and setting the Sarcopenia Quality of Life (SarQoL(R)) questionnaire. Methods: A convenience sample of 176 Greek elderly people (136 females, 40 males; aged 71.19 +/- 7.95 years) was recruited, 50 of which (36 females, 14 males) were diagnosed sarcopenic. Questionnaire was back-translated and culturally adapted into Greek according to international guidelines. To validate the Greek SarQoL(R), we assessed its validity (discriminative power, construct validity), reliability (internal consistency, test-retest reliability) and floor/ceiling effects. Participants were divided into sarcopenic and non-sarcopenic. Sarcopenic subjects apart from the Greek SarQoL (SarQoL(GR)) filled out the Greek versions of two generic questionnaires; Short Form-36 and EuroQoL 5-dimension. Results: The Greek SarQoL questionnaire was translated without major difficulties. SarQoL(GR) mean scores were 52.12 +/- 11.04 (range: 24.74-71.81) for sarcopenic subjects and 68.23 +/- 14.1 (range: 24.83-94.81) for non-sarcopenic ones. Results indicated good discriminative power across sarcopenic and non-sarcopenic subjects (p = 0.01), high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha of 0.96) and excellent test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.96, 95% CI = 0.95-0.97). Neither a floor nor a ceiling effect was observed. Conclusions: The Greek SarQoL was found to be a reliable and valid measure of quality of life for sarcopenic patients. It is therefore, available for use in future clinical research and practice.