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Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy Health Index: Japanese translation and validation study
Haruo Fujino1, Masanori P Takahashi2, Harumasa Nakamura3
1United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan.
Purpose:
The Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy Health Index (FSHD-HI) is a patient-reported outcome measure developed for patients with FSHD. This study aimed to translate the FSHD-HI into Japanese (FSHD-HI-J), evaluate cultural adaptation, and examine its psychometric properties.
Materials And Methods:
We created two forward translations, integrated them into a single Japanese version, and evaluated the back-translated version of the FSHD-HI. After finalizing the translation and cultural adaptation, we conducted a survey of 66 patients with FSHD to examine the reliability and validity of the FSHD-HI-J. For psychometric evaluations, we used Cronbach's alpha to assess internal consistency, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for test-retest reliability, and assessed validity based on the associations between FSHD-HI-J, clinical variables, and quality of life measures.
Results:
The FSHD-HI-J was found to be clinically relevant, indicating high internal consistency and test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.92 [95% confidence interval: 0.86-0.95] for the total score), as well as significant associations with clinical variables (D4Z4 repeats and functional impairment) and other quality of life measures (|rho| = 0.25-0.73).
Conclusions:
The FSHD-HI-J is a valid and reliable patient-reported outcome measure for Japanese patients with FSHD. This validated, disease-specific patient-reported outcome is essential for future clinical practice and clinical trials.
