Translation and validation of the Chinese version of Brace Questionnaire (BrQ)

Background: The Brace Questionnaire (BrQ) is a tool developed to assess the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) who receiving bracing as the primary treatment. It was initially developed and validated in Greek. The current study aimed to culturally adapt and psychometrically validate the BrQ in contemporary Chinese used in mainland China.

Methods: Translation of the BrQ from the original Greek into Chinese was performed. This study involved 70 Chinese adolescents between 10 and 18 years of age with a diagnosis of AIS and a Cobb angle measuring between 20 and 40 degrees. All patients received the same kind of brace for more than 4 months. Statistical analyses included internal consistency and the floor and ceiling effects of the BrQ. Subsequently, convergent validity was evaluated by correlating the measures in the BrQ with those in the Scoliosis Research Society-22 Questionnaire (SRS-22).

Results: There were no floor and ceiling effects observed with the Chinese version of BrQ. The intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) was 0.967. Internal consistency as measured by Cronbach's alpha was 0.923. The global BrQ score correlated strongly with the SRS-22 total score (r=0.743, P<0.001). Most domain-level sub-scores from the BrQ correlated with the respective domain scores of SRS-22.

Conclusions: Cross-cultural translation and validation demonstrated excellent reliability, high internal consistency and satisfactory concurrent validity of the Chinese version of BrQ.