[Cultural and linguistic validation, in Spanish, of the International Prostatic Symptoms Scale (I-PSS)]

Formal presentation of the cultural and linguistic validation, in Spanish, of the International Prostatic Symptoms Scale (I-PSS). The process for the official translation into Spanish of the questionnaire on prostatic symptomatology and quality of live derived from urinary symptoms, has followed a methodology common to several countries (UK, Italy, Norway, The Netherlands and Spain) which consisted in: translation into Spanish of the original American-English version published by the WHO in 1992, by two independent bilingual urologists; re-translation into English, checking any conceptual and semantic changes that had caused difficulties in the process of translation/re-translation; final choice of the text by an International Committee based both on the data provided by the above process and the experience of the Central Committee accrued over their relationships with the various National Committees. The resulting text was applied to 33 patients with prostate disease and 12 controls, individually recording any difficulty of interpretation and choice of answer observed for each of the questions. The final text herewith presented constitutes the official reference for the Spanish translation of the International Prostatic Symptoms Scale (I-PSS) which should be used for future symptomatic evaluations. The purpose of this cultural and linguistic validation is to secure that the application of these scales provides comparable and consistent numerical results in those countries where the translation has not been officially validated.