Translation, cultural adaptation and aplication of a pain questionnaire for patients with polycystic kidney disease.

INTRODUCTION Pain is a common symptom in patients with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), affecting around 60% of cases. OBJECTIVE Translate a pain questionnaire developed and validated for ADPKD in USA into Portuguese and to perform its cultural adaptation and apply it. METHOD The cultural adaptation performed by a panel of experts resulted in small changes consisting of words substitution by synonyms or deletion of terms not commonly used in our culture in 12 out of the 46 questions posed, to solve patients difficulties in understanding the questionnaire. RESULTS There has been equivalence between the adapted form of the instrument with the back-translation. The final form of the questionnaire applied in 97 patients with ADPKD (64F/33M, 35 ± 12 years) showed that 65 (67%) had isolated or associated pain in multiple locations , more often at lumbar region (77%), followed by abdominal (66%), headache (15%) and chest (4%). The questionnaire revealed that after family history, pain was the second factor contributing to the diagnosis of ADPKD in this population (55% and 22% of cases, respectively). DISCUSSION Clinical and laboratory data from medical records showed that patients referring pain had renal volume and size of the largest cyst significantly higher than those without pain. CONCLUSION We conclude that the use of a specific pain questionnaire for ADPKD population provided a better characterization of this symptom, as well as its relationship with the associated complications that commonly occur in this setting.