The psychometric properties of the Turkish Stroke and Aphasia Quality Of Life Scale-39

The Stroke and Aphasia Quality Of Life Scale (SAQOL-39) is a widely used instrument in assessing the quality of life in aphasic patients. Our purpose was to translate the SAQOL-39 into the Turkish language (SAQOL-39/TR) and assess its reliability and validity in patients who had aphasia. SAQOL-39/TR was obtained using the 'translation-backward translation' method and administered to 40 patients with aphasia. The reliability studies were performed by means of internal consistency and test-retest reliability. The validation studies were carried out by means of construct validity using within-scale analyses and analyses against the external criteria. Correlation analysis was performed between scales and the Ege Aphasia Test, the Barthel index, the 12-item General Health Questionnaire and the Brunnstrom recovery stages (BRS) of the arm, hand, and lower extremity. In the results, the scores of the SAQOL-39 were not different between groups. Cronbach's α variables were good for all domains (0.80, 0.88, 0.89, 0.82, and 0.83). Test-retest reliability was also high (0.96, 0.97, 0.91, 0.70, and 0.96). There were significant correlations with coefficients ranging from 0.36 to 0.60 among the domains of scale and other measures. Moderate-high correlations were also seen with BRS-arm, BRS-hand, and BRS-lower extremity (r, 0.27-0.58). It was found that all domains were highly related with all domains of Ege aphasia test, except praxia (P<0.001). This study showed that the SAQOL-39/TR has acceptable validity and reliability in assessing the quality of life. However, similar results of the scale in patients with dysarthria suggest that the SAQOL-39 may not be specific to only aphasic patients.