Validation of the Swedish version of the disease-specific Myasthenia Gravis Questionnaire

Abstract

The aim of this study was to translate and validate the disease-specific patient-derived Myasthenia Gravis (MG) Questionnaire to enable use among Swedish MG patients. The original Italian version of the MG Questionnaire (MGQ) was translated into Swedish and transculturally adapted. The validity and reliability was tested on 48 Swedish MG patients. We correlated MGQ scores with disease severity and with the Swedish version of the Short-Form 36-item general health survey (SF-36). Reproducibility was assessed on 18 clinically stable MG patients. A significant correlation regarding the MGQ scores was seen when correlated with physical scores of the SF-36 and the overall clinical status. Internal consistency and reproducibility was excellent. We conclude that the evaluation capacities of the Swedish MGQ are equivalent to those of the original Italian version of the MGQ. The questionnaire was successfully validated as an outcome measure also for Swedish MG patients, which is important for international multicentre clinical trials.