147.
Validation of the Danish version of the Toronto Extremity Salvage
Score (TESS) questionnaire – a measurement of functional outcome for
sarcoma patients.
Casper Sæbye, Akmal Safwat, Ninna Aggerholm-Pedersen, Anne Kathrine
Kaa, Johnny Keller
Experimental Clinical Oncology Sarcoma Centre of Aarhus University
Hospital, Denmark; Oncology, Sarcoma Centre of Aarhus University Hospital,
Denmark; Experimental Clinical Oncology, Sarcoma Centre of Aarhus
University Hospital, Denmark; Orthopaedics, Sarcoma Centre of Aarhus
University Hospital, Denmark; Orthopaedics, Sarcoma Centre of Aarhus
University Hospital, Denmark
Background:
The Toronto Extremity Salvage Score (TESS) questionnaire is a
self administered questionnaire designed to assess physical disability for
patients with sarcoma of the extremities and thereby allowing comparison of
different possible outcomes. The use of a questionnaire developed and
validated in one country needs to be revalidated if it is translated and used in
another country in order to overcome cultural and linguistic bias.
Purpose / Aim of Study:
To validate the Danish translation of the TESS
questionnaire.
Materials and Methods:
The TESS was translated according to the
previously published guidelines made by Guillemin et. al. This includes two
independent translations into Danish. These translations was combined and
then translated back to English. Twenty-two consecutive patients following the
regular outpatient control program were recruited for the study. The patients
were asked to describe the meaning of five randomly picked questions from
the TESS. Patients also completed the QLQ-C30 questionnaire. To assess the
test- retest reliability the patients were asked to fill in an extra TESS
questionnaire one week after they completed the first one. Psychometric
properties of the Danish version of TESS were tested in terms of validity and
reliability. Spearman’s rank coefficient was used to compare TESS and QLQ-
C30.
Findings / Results:
The validity expressed as Spearman’s rank coefficient
comparing the TESS with QLQ-C30 functional score was 0,935. The test-
retest reliability expressed by Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was
0,97.
The average completion time of the Danish TESS was 5 min and 34
seconds. The understanding of the five randomized questions was generally
good.
Conclusions:
The psychometric properties have shown good validity and
reliability of the Danish TESS version. The questionnaire was easy to
complete and was well understood.
