Adaptation to Arabic Language, Validity and Reliability Test of Boston Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Patients

Abstract
Background: Carpal tunnel syndrome is a frequent cause of compression neuropathy. So, it is necessary to measure function and symptoms which are highly important to patients with carpal tunnel syndrome and have the most impact on quality of life.
Aim of Study: To translate and test face validity, content validity, feasibility, internal consistency reliability and test retest reliability of Arabic-language version of Boston carpal tunnel questionnaire in carpal tunnel syndrome patients.
Material and Methods: Fifty patients with carpal tunnel syndrome was recruited, 95 sheets (test and retest sheets) were filled out, two expert panels (each consists of ten experts) participated in this study. Forward translation, development of preliminary initially translated version, backward translation, and development of the pre-final version and testing of pre-final version by experts then testing of the final version on patients was done. Index of clarity, expert proportion of clearance, index of content validity, expert proportion of relevance, descriptive statistics, missed item index, Cronbach's alpha and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient were used for statistical analysis.
Results: The study showed that scale index of clarity equals 87.14%, the mean proportion of clearance equals 87.14%, scale index of content validity equals 96.67%, the mean proportion of relevance equals 96.67%. The questionnaire items were filled by 95% in all sheets. The questionnaire needed less than 7 minutes to be filled. Cronbach's alpha equals 0.915 (0.877, 0.915) and all Spearman's correlations between test and retest results were statistically significant.
Conclusion: Arabic-language version of Boston carpal tunnel questionnaire has face and content validity, feasibility and Internal consistency and test retest reliability enough in assessment of carpal tunnel syndrome.