METHODS: The study was approved by the Institutional Research Advisory Council. The Arabic translation followed the standard Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT.org) translation methodology (with permission). Arabic FACT-BMT (50- items) was statistically validated. Cronbach\'s alpha for internal consistency, Spearman\'s rank correlation coefficients method for Inter-scale correlations and Principal Component Analysis for factorial construct validity was used.
RESULTS: One hundred and eight consecutive relapsed /refractory lymphoma patients who underwent high dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplant were enrolled. There were 68 males (63%) and 40 females (37%) with a median age of 29 years (range 14-62). After Arabic questionnaire pre-testing (Cronbach\'s alpha 0.744), the study included 108 patients. Cronbach\'s alpha for the entire FACT-BMT indicated an excellent internal consistency (0.90); range (0.67 to 0.91). Cronbach\'s alpha for sub-groups of social (0.78), emotional (0.67) and functional wellbeing was (0.88). Cronbach\'s alpha for bone marrow transplant (0.81), FACT-General (0.89), and FACT- Trial Outcome Index (TOI); (0.91) also revealed excellent internal consistency. Patients had high scores in all domains of quality of life, indicating that most patients were leading a normal life. This translation of FACT-BMT in Arabic was reviewed and approved for submission by the FACIT.org.
CONCLUSIONS: Our data reports the first translated, validated and approved Arabic version of FACT-BMT. This will help large numbers of Arabic speaking patients undergoing stem cell/bone marrow transplantation, across the globe.