Evaluation of the Reliability and Validity of the Persian Version  of Urticaria Control Test (UCT)

Maryam Khoshkhui; Karsten Weller; Javad Fadaee; Marcus Maurer; Farahzad  Jabbari Azad; Maryam Emadzadeh

doi:10.18502/ijaai.v20i4.6952

Maryam Khoshkhui Allergy Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
Karsten Weller Dermatological Allergology, Department of Dermatology and Allergy, Allergie-Centrum-Charité, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Javad Fadaee Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran
Marcus Maurer Dermatological Allergology, Department of Dermatology and Allergy, Allergie-Centrum-Charité, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Farahzad Jabbari Azad Allergy Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
Maryam Emadzadeh Clinical Research Development Unit, Ghaem Hospital, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18502/ijaai.v20i4.6952

Keywords: Chronic urticaria; Patient reported outcome measures; Quality of life; Reproducibility of results

Abstract

The urticaria control test (UCT) is a patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) for chronic urticaria (CU) patients. As a Persian version of the UCT was not available, the present research aimed to develop such a version, to test its reliability and validity as well as to evaluate urticaria control among Persian-speaking patients.

This research was conducted at the Urticaria Centre of Reference and Excellence (UCARE) of Ghaem Hospital, Mashhad, Iran. In a first step, a linguistically validated Persian version of the UCT was developed through a structured forward and backward translation process and subsequent cognitive debriefing interviews. In a second step, the Persian version of the UCT was completed by 100 well-characterized CU patients together with two anchor instruments, the Chronic Urticaria Quality of life Questionnaire (CU-Q2oL) and the urticaria activity score (UAS), to obtain information on its internal consistency reliability and convergent validity.

The Persian version of the UCT was found to have acceptable internal consistency reliability with a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.68. In addition, the results obtained with the Persian UCT correlated with the CU-Q2oL total score (-0.48, p<0.001) and the UAS (-0.404, p˂0.001), suggesting convergent validity. Virtually all patients had poorly controlled CU (UCT<12).

A Persian version of the UCT is now available and may help to improve the assessment and monitoring of disease control in Persian-speaking CU patients and to optimize treatment decisions.