Validation of the French version of the Fecal Incontinence Quality-of-Life (FIQL) scale.

INTRODUCTION The aim of this multicenter study was to validate the French version of the fecal incontinence quality-of-life scale (FIQL scale) developed in the Unites States of America. PATIENTS AND METHODS The FIQL scale has 29 items in four scales: lifestyle, coping/behavior, depression/self-perception and embarrassment. Each item is scored from 1 to 4, with poorest quality-of-life scored 1. An average is calculated for each scale. After linguistic validation of the questionnaire, the French version of the FIQL scale was tested twice, at day 0 and day 7, by 100 patients with fecal incontinence (FI). Construction validity, internal reliability, clinical validity and reproducibility were analysed. RESULTS Analysis of convergent validity of the French version of the FIQL scale showed very good correlation between items and the corresponding scale for lifestyle (0.50-0.79) and depression/self-perception (0.44-0.74), good correlation for coping/behavior (0.31-0.70) and weak correlation for embarrassment (0.30-0.40). Valid discrimination was observed for 24 of the 29 items. Internal reliability was good for each scale (alpha Cronbach between 0.78 and 0.92). Scores determined with the FIQL scale were significantly correlated with Wexner FI scores, demonstrating the clinical validity of the instrument. Reproducibility, evaluated in patients whose FI was unchanged between day 0 and day 7, was good with intraclass correlation coefficients ranging from 0.80 (embarrassment) to 0.93 (lifestyle). CONCLUSIONS The linguistic and psychometric evaluation demonstrated the validity of the French version of the FIQL scale. This standardized instrument is now available for clinical use in France for quality-of-life assessment in patients with FI.