Severe Asthma Questionnaire: translation to Portuguese and cross-cultural adaptation for its use in Portugal

Objective: To translate and perform a cross-cultural adaptation of the Severe Asthma Questionnaire (SAQ) so that it can be used as a tool to measure the impact of asthma symptoms on quality of life as well as the impact of asthma treatments in severe asthmatic patients in Portugal.Methods: Based on the principles of good practice for the translation and cross-cultural adaptation of such instruments, the protocol included the following steps: acquisition of authorization from the authors of the original questionnaire; translation of the instrument to Portuguese, carried out by two health professionals; reconciliation; back-translation to English, carried out by two health professionals who are fluent in Portuguese; review of the back-translation; harmonization; review and approval of the questionnaire; focus groups involving 12 patients who completed and improved the wording of the questionnaire; analysis of the results; and review and preparation of the final version of the instrument approved by the original SAQ team.Results: The final version of the SAQ for use in Portugal included minor modifications suggested by the patients.The mean and standard deviations of the patients age was 50.08 ± 13.43 years and 50% were female.All had some level of education and the majority (58.3%) had a favourable economic background.