Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the Urticaria Control Test From German to Castilian Spanish

The clinical concept of urticaria embraces a heterogeneous group of conditions classified according to their clinical course as acute (lasting less than 6 weeks) or chronic (lasting 6 weeks or more). Chronic urticaria may be either spontaneous or induced. Few tools are available for monitoring the various clinical forms of this disease or for evaluating its impact on quality of life. The recently developed Urticaria Control Test to evaluate disease control is available in German, the original language, and American English.

To culturally adapt the long and short versions of the Urticaria Control Test to Castilian Spanish to ensure equivalence between the translated items and those of the original version.

To translate the Urticaria Control Test we followed the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research good practice guidelines, starting with forward translation and moving through back translation and cognitive debriefing steps.

Three items were modified when the first Spanish version, translated from German, was discussed (cognitive debriefing). The revised translation was then translated back to German and sent to the Urticaria Control Test authors, who modified one item they considered had acquired a different focus through translation. A third Spanish version was then prepared and after minor proofreading changes was considered definitive.

This study was the first step in making it possible to use the Urticaria Control Test questionnaire in Castilian Spanish. The next step will be to validate the translated questionnaire.