Validation of Kidney Disease Quality of Life Short Form 36 (KDQOL-SF™) in Malayalam among Patients Undergoing Haemodialysis in South Kerala

INTRODUCTION: Hemodialysis is the most common mode of therapy worldwide for chronic kidney disease (CKD) and is used as a life-sustaining therapy for most of the patients. Studies proved that dialysis affects the Quality of life (QOL) of patients. Health-related quality of life has been increasingly recognized as an important medical outcome in patients with CKD. Kidney disease quality of life short form (KDQOL-SF™) is developed by RAND to assess the QOL in CKD patients. This study was conducted to translate and validate the questionnaire KDQOL-SF™ in Malayalam. METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted among the patients who were undergoing dialysis in Sree Gokulam Medical College and Research foundation, Trivandrum. The translation was done according the specifications given by RAND. A sample of 112 patients studied. Statistical analysis was done for evaluating item internal consistency, item discriminant validity, equality of item-scale correlations, scale level reliability, and validity. Scale level descriptive statistics were computed. RESULTS: Item internal consistency was more than 0.4 for all scales except a few. Item-level discriminant validity was 100% for almost all scales. Scale level reliability and validity were examined; all scales met the required internal consistency criteria. The overall reliability of the tool was 0.81. Scale level reliability varies from 0.71 to 0.92, which support item homogeneity and internal consistency across scales. Overall mean health rating score was 53.43 ± 11.48. CONCLUSION: The Malayalam version of KDQOL-SF™ is reliable and valid which can be used for measuring the health-related quality of life of Malayalam speaking CKD patients.