RESUMO
PURPOSE: This study was designed to develop and test a Chinese burn patient-specific quality of life (QOL) scale based on the burn-specific health scale - brief (BSHS - B) to provide an effective assessment tool to measure quality of life in Chinese burn patients. METHOD: Delphi method was used after the translation, back translation and pre-commissioning tests of BSHS - B, to amend the description of the items for cultural adaptation. The adapted Chinese version (ACV) of the BSHS - B was tested for internal consistency and validity of construct on a group of 271 burn patients from three major burn units in China. RESULTS: Thirty-eight items within six domains of ACV BSHS-B were developed with scoring '0-4' in each item. The mean total score for our study group was 98.36 (standard deviation (S.D.)=37.86), ranging from 13 to 150. The total Cronbach's alpha value was 0.97 and total split-half reliability was 0.98, demonstrating that the internal consistency of the ACV was very high. Pearson correlations among the six domains of ACV BSHS - B were statistically significant. Exploratory factor analysis results showed that the six-factor function explained 78.30% of total variance; each entry in the corresponding domain had a factor-loading value higher than 0.4, indicating that the scale has a good validity. CONCLUSION: The ACV of the BSHS - B showed good reliability and validity, and can be used as a tool for assessing the QOL in Chinese burn patients.