French cross-cultural adaptation of the health utilities indexes Mark 2 (HUI2) and 3 (HUI3) classification systems

The McMaster Health Utilities Indexes Mark 2 (HUI2) and 3 (HUI3) are multiattribute health classification systems, for which multiattribute preference functions have been developed in Canada. They provide a comprehensive instrument for use in economic evaluations and population health survey studies. This paper reports on the first results on the adaptation of the HUI2 and HUI3 systems cross-culturally and the assessment of the validity and reliability of the French self-report questionnaire in different patient populations. The cross-cultural adaptation included translation, backtranslations, an expert consensus meeting and pre-test with a few patients and healthy subjects in order to produce a conceptually equivalent French version of the 15 question self-report questionnaire and the HUI2 and HUI3 classification systems. Different groups of patients attending specialized clinics (n = 709) completed the questionnaire and another generic questionnaire (the Sickness Impact Profile (SIP)) for validity assessment. Physicians and patients were also asked for a global subjective assessment of the patient's health status. The French questionnaire was well received by the patients. The criterion and convergent validities of both classification systems (correlations with the patients' and physicians' assessments and with the responses to the SIP questionnaire) were satisfactory. The internal consistency was acceptable too (Cronbach's alpha = 0.81), as was the 3 day test-retest reproducibility. These first results authorize careful use of the 15 question self-report questionnaire in French. An assessment of the multiattribute preference function for the HUI3 system in France will be the study's next objective. (C) 1998 Lippincott-Raven Publishers.