Cross-cultural adaptation to Brazilian Portuguese of the Activity Measure for Post-Acute Care (AM-PAC) short forms for outpatients in rehabilitation

BACKGROUND: The Activity Measure for Post-Acute Care was developed to evaluate the limitations of activities of adult individuals with different health conditions. OBJECTIVES: To translate and cultural adapt the Activity Measure for Post-Acute Care short forms for outpatients into Portuguese–Brazilian, to verify the comprehension of the items and categories of the responses by users of the rehabilitation services and to analyze the reliability indices of the instrument. METHODS: Translation and back-translation were conducted by two independent teams. Cognitive interviews (n = 2) evaluated the comprehension of the translated version among patients. Item reliability and consistency was also investigated. RESULTS: There was conceptual equivalence between the translated and original versions. For some items, the information was modified in order to attend to the measurement units used in Brazil. Comparative analyses of the translated versions chose the most appropriate term to capture the English content. The few discrepancies identified in the back-translation were solved by consensus. The cognitive interviews detected few comprehension problems, which were solved by means of repetition of the item statement and use of examples to clarify the specificity of the information. The final translated short forms of the instrument showed excellent test-retest reliability and inter-examiner reliability indices, as well as high internal consistency. CONCLUSION: The Portuguese version of the Activity Measure for Post-Acute Care short forms will provide Brazilian clinicians and researchers with an up-to-date instrument for the evaluation of functioning of adults with various clinical conditions who attend outpatient rehabilitation settings.