French translation and validation of the “Anterior Knee Pain Scale” (AKPS)

Abstract

Purpose: To linguistically and cross-culturally translate the Anterior Knee Pain Scale into French and to evaluate the reliability and validity of this translated version of the questionnaire.

Methods: The translation part was performed in six stages, according to international guidelines: (i) two initial translations from English to French; (ii) synthesis of the two translations; (iii) backward translations into the original language; (iv) expert committee to compare the backward translations with the original questionnaire; (v) pre-final version testing and (VI) expert committee appraisal. To validate the French version of the Anterior Knee Pain Scale, we assessed its validity, reliability and floor/ceiling effects. To do this, volunteer patients from the French part of Belgium and from France, with patellofemoral pain were asked to answer the French version of the Anterior Knee Pain Scale at baseline and after 7 days, as well as the generic SF-36 questionnaire.

Results: The Anterior Knee Pain Scale was translated without any major difficulties. A total of 101 subjects aged 34.5 ± 11.4 years (58.4% of women) were included in this study. Results indicated an excellent test-retest reliability (Intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) = 0.97, 95%CI: 0.96–0.98), a high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.87), a consistent construct validity (high correlations with the SF-36 questionnaire were found with domains related to physical function (r = 0.80), physical role (r = 0.70) and pain (r = 0.64)) and low or moderate correlations with domains related to mental health (r = 0.26), vitality (r = 0.32) and social function (r = 0.41). Moreover, no floor/ceiling effects have been found.

Conclusions: A valid French version of the Anterior Knee Pain Scale is now available and can be used with confidence to better assess the disease burden associated with patellofemoral pain. It was successfully cross-culturally adapted into French.

Implications for rehabilitation

• The results on psychometric properties of the French Anterior Knee Pain Scale are comparable with six validated versions obtained for the Finnish, the Turkish, the Chinese, the Dutch, the Thai and the Persian populations.

• The French translated version of the Anterior Knee Pain Scale is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing the functional limitations associated with patellofemoral pain.

• The test–retest reliability of the French Anterior Knee Pain Scale was excellent, the internal consistency was high and the construct validity was consistent. There were no floor/ceiling effects.

Keywords:

• Cross-cultural adaptation
• patellofemoral pain
• Anterior Knee Pain Scale
• French translation
• psychometric properties
• Kujala Patellofemoral Questionnaire

Acknowledgements

We thank all the individuals who generously shared their time and experience for the purposes of this project. We also thank the translators, who do not belong to the authors.

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University teaching Hospital of Liège.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.