Original articleValidation of the French version of the MSA health-related Quality of Life scale (MSA-QoL)Atrophie multisystématisée, syndrome parkinsonien atypique, qualité de vie, MSA-QoL
Introduction
Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a neurodegenerative disorder presenting as a variable combination of autonomic failure, parkinsonism, cerebellar ataxia and pyramidal tract dysfunction (Gilman et al., 2008). MSA has considerable impact on health-related quality of life (Benrud-Larson et al., 2005, Schrag et al., 2006). Beyond scales assessing impairment of motor function and activities of daily living, patient-reported data are increasingly being recognized as important outcome measures for clinical trials in movement disorders (Deuschl et al., 2006). The MSA Health-Related Quality of Life scale (MSA-QoL) is a patient-reported questionnaire, that has been recently designed to evaluate the quality of life in MSA (Schrag et al., 2007b). Its development had become necessary because other tools that are used for the assessment of health-related quality of life in movement disorders such as the Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire-39 have shown only limited validity in MSA patients (Schrag et al., 2007a). The MSA-QoL questionnaire is composed of three different subscales: motor (14 items), non-motor (12 items) and emotional/social (14 items). The response options for each question range from 0 (no problem) to 4 (extreme problem) with higher total scores reflecting more impaired quality of life. The MSA-QoL also includes a visual analogue scale (VAS) of how satisfied patients feel (range 0–100, with lower scores indicating lower quality of life). The objective of the present study was to validate the French version of the MSA-QoL questionnaire.
Section snippets
Study design
This study is part of a prospective longitudinal cohort study of MSA patients who are recruited at the French Reference Centre for MSA. The study was approved by national authorities (CNIL, No. 1338780; CCTIRS, No. 10.065). All patients gave their informed written consent before study enrolment.
Patients
One hundred and thirty-six consecutive MSA patients who were recruited at the French Reference Centre in Toulouse and Bordeaux between 2008 and 2010 were included. Patients with more than 10% missing
Patient characteristics
Patient characteristics (age, disease duration, gender, MSA subtype and degree of certitude) and scores of MSA-QoL, UMSARS, SF-36, BDI and MMSE are summarized in Table 1. MSA subscale scores are also indicated for different disease duration and UMSARS IV scores (Table 3). Univariate linear regression analysis showed a moderate relation between MSA-QoL motor subscale scores and disease duration (r = 0.26, P = 0.002), while no association was noted between disease duration and non-motor (r = 0.14, P =
Discussion
The present study shows that the French version of the MSA-QoL questionnaire has psychometric properties similar to those described for the English version of the MSA-QoL questionnaire (Schrag et al., 2007b). The general characteristics of our cohort in terms of age, gender, disease duration and MSA type were similar compared to the cohort of the original validation in English language and previous natural history studies from EMSA and NAMSA study groups (Geser et al., 2006, May et al., 2007).
Conclusion
The French version of MSA-QoL displays robust psychometric properties similar to the English version. It seems therefore suitable for assessing quality of life in French speaking MSA patients.
Disclosure of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest concerning this article.
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