The Impact of Lupus Erythematosus Cutaneous on the Quality of life: The Brazilian–Portuguese Version of DLQI

Objective: To translate into Brazilian–Portuguese, culturally adapt and validate the DLQI. Patients and Methods: The DLQI was translated into Brazilian–Portuguese and cultural adaptation was performed following the methodology proposed by Falcão. Inter-observer reliability and validity were assessed. Seventy-one patients with lupus erythematosus with cutaneous lesions selected from the outpatient dermatology clinic had their quality of life assessed by DLQI and SF-36. The validity of the Brazilian–Portuguese version of the DLQI was evaluated by the correlation of DLQI scores with SF-36 component scores and other outcome measures. Results: In the translation and cultural adaptation process the basic structure of DLQI was kept. Very few questions have very slightly modifications. Of the 71 patients, 83% were women and the median (SD) age was 38 (12) years. The patients had a mean (SD) disease duration of 8(6) years. There were 46 patients with active cutaneous lesions and 37 patients with alopecia. The DLQI inter-observer reliability coefficient was 0.96 (p<0.001). The DLQI mean (SD) score was 6.5 (5.6) and most of the SF-36 domains were between 60 and 70. The domains that had the lowest scores were ‘general health’ (62) and ‘mental health’ (62). The Pearson correlation coefficient between DLQI and each SF-36 component score were highly statistically significant (p<0.001), despite of being only moderate. As expected there was no correlation between DLQI or each one of the SF-36 components and age, disease duration or number of ACR criteria. Patients with active cutaneous lesions presented statistically significant lower scores of DLQI and SF-36 when compared to patients without active cutaneous lesions. Patients with alopecia presented a statistically significant lower score in DLQI when compared to patients without alopecia. Conclusions: The results suggest that the Brazilian–Portuguese version of the DLQI is a reliable and valid outcome measure to be used in LE clinical studies.