Background
The 7-item RECAP (Recap of Atopic Eczema) questionnaire is used to assess the control of different degrees of eczema severity in patients of all ages. Long-term control of eczema is one of the 4 core outcome domains to be assessed in clinical trials of eczema therapies. After the RECAP was developed in the United Kingdom, it was translated into Chinese, German, Dutch, and French.
Objectives
To produce a validated Spanish version of the RECAP questionnaire and, secondarily, to test its content validity in a group of Spanish patients with atopic eczema.
Material and methods
In a 7-step process we produced 2 forward translations and 1 back translation of the RECAP questionnaire. Experts then held two meetings to reach consensus and draft a Spanish version of the questionnaire. Fifteen adult patients with atopic eczema were interviewed to evaluate the comprehensibility, comprehensiveness, and relevance of the drafted items. These patients also completed the Atopic Dermatitis Control Tool (ADCT), the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI), and the Patient-Oriented Eczema Measure (POEM). Stata software (version 16) was then used to explore the correlations between the patients’ scores on these tools and the RECAP.
Results
The patients found the Spanish version of the RECAP to be comprehensible and easy to answer. We observed a strong correlation between results on the Spanish RECAP and the ADCT, and highly significant correlations between the RECAP and the DLQI and POEM tools.
Conclusions
The culturally adapted Spanish version of the RECAP is linguistically equivalent to the original version of the questionnaire. RECAP scores correlate highly with other patient-reported outcome measures.