Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Kujala Anterior Knee Pain Scale (AKPS) questionnaire for French-speaking patients

Introduction: The femoropatellar syndrom is one of the most common knee problem observable. The Kujala Anterior Knee Pain Scale (AKPS) is a questionnaire used to examine the subjective symptoms, such as the functional limitations and the anterior knee pain. Objective: The aims of the study were to translate and cross-culturally adapt the AKPS questionnaire into French and to evaluate the reliability and validity of this translated version of the questionnaire (AKPS- F). Patients : 101 patients with femoropatellar syndrom. Methods: The translation and the inter-cultural adaptation of the questionnaire has been adopted through the international recommendations highlighting 6 different steps : initial translation, translations synthesis, translation back to the original language, committee of experts, test of the pre-final version and the approval from the expert’s committee. Indeed the French version obtained, the participants have filled twice the AKPS with an interval of 7 days, and the Short Form Health in order to evaluate the psychometric properties (the internal coherence, the test-retest fidelity and the built validity). Results:The AKPS shows a high level of fidelity in the test-retest with a score of 0.97. The French translation also has a high internal coherence score with 0.87. The Kujula shows a great correlation with a part of the converging sub-scales from the SF36. There is a low/average correlation noticeable with the diverging sub-scales. There is no floor/ceiling effect. Discussion and conclusions: This study shows that AKPS-F is reliable and valid for the French patients suffering from a femoropatellar syndrom and can therefore be used.