Initial psychometric evaluation of the Portuguese version of the Liverpool Osteoarthritis in Dogs

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most commonly diagnosed joint disease in companion animals, and proper tools are necessary to assess patients and response to treatment. We aimed to perform an initial psychometric evaluation of the Portuguese version of the Liverpool Osteoarthritis in Dogs (LOAD).Fifty Police working dogs with bilateral hip OA were assessed in a prospective, randomized, double-blinded study. Canine handlers, who were native Portuguese speakers, completed a copy of the translated version of the LOAD. Their results were compared with those of fifty sound dogs. Construct validity was evaluated by assessing differences between OA and sound animals with the Mann-Whitney test. Further evaluation was performed with the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy, Eigenvalue, and scree-plot analysis. Internal consistency was tested with Cronbach's α.

A significant difference was observed between OA and sound dogs (p < 0.01), indicating construct validity. Two factors accounted for 81.5% of the total variance. Cronbach's α was 0.96, and a high inter-item correlation was observed, raging from 0.76 to 0.95, showing strong internal consistency. We presented criterion and construct validity of the Portuguese version of the LOAD, which is valid for use in the Portuguese language. It is an additional stage in providing a broader number of clinicians with an accessible tool to evaluate dogs with osteoarthritis. Further studies are required.