Validation of the French version of the Wisconsin Quality of Life (WISQOL) questionnaire for patients with urolithiasis

Introduction: The Wisconsin Stone Quality of Life (WISQOL) questionnaire has been recently developed to objectively assess QOL in patients with urolithiasis. However, French version of the questionnaire was lacking. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to develop and validate the French version of this tool. Methods: The French version of the WISQOL (F-WISQOL) was developed in a multi-step process involving primary translation, back-translation and pilot testing amongst a group of patients (n=12). Urolithiasis patients from two tertiary care institutions were recruited into this study and completed 3 questionnaires: Perceived Stress Scale-10, medical history form and either the WISQOL or F-WISQOL. Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach’s α and inter-domain associations were evaluated using Spearman’s rank correlation (r). One-way ANOVA was used to compare scores from the two groups (WISQOL and F-WISQOL). Results: A total of 210 patients were enrolled in this study; 68 in the WISQOL group and 148 in the F-WISQOL group. Internal consistency was high for all domains in both groups (F-WISQOL: 0.924-0.970; WISQOL: 0.888-0.965). No statistically significant difference was found between the two groups’ scores. Inter-domain association, measured by Spearman correlation, was moderate to very strong between all of the domains in the F-WISQOL. Values ranged from r=0.676-0.915, with acceptable correlation between D1, D2 and D3, but weaker correlation between D4 (vitality) and the 3 other domains r=0.676-0.729. Conclusions: In the present study, the French version of the WISQOL questionnaire (F-WISQOL) was validated at two academic institutions.