Translation and evaluation of short musculoskeletal function assessment questionnaire in Farsi language patients with musculoskeletal trauma

Considering the increasing number of musculoskeletal disorders, insufficiency of current assessment tools, and successful reports about SMFA (short musculoskeletal function assessment) questionnaire in evaluating and assessing these disorders, this study was designed.

The original questionnaire was in English. At first, SMFA was translated to Farsi and then back to English. Then the questionnaire was evaluated for validity and reliability, regarding content validity, visual validity and concurrent validity. For concurrent validity, the SF-36 health survey which had been translated to Farsi and had been adapted to Iranian culture was used.

326 patients (56.77% male) with mean age of 51±16 years contributed in this study. The translation to Farsi and back to English was done successfully. The content validity was assessed by 20 orthopedic surgeons and was approved. Simplicity and clearance was evaluated by physicians and patients and was confirmed. Also visual validity was confirmed by the same group. Concurrent validity was 0.91 and in subscales was 0.89-0.93 (p<0.001). ‍

A reliable and valid Farsi version of the SMFA was developed. It will facilitate assessing functional performance within a large patient population and allows cross-cultural comparisons.