Validity and reliability of Persian version of chronic liver disease questionnaire (CLDQ)

Purpose The aim of this study is to test the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire (CLDQ) in Iranian candidates for liver transplantation. Method One hundred and fifty-five consecutive adult patients awaiting liver transplantation completed the Persian version of CLDQ and the short-form health survey (SF-36). The etiology of cirrhosis, Child Pugh classification and Model for End stage Liver Disease (MELD) scores were taken from medical records. Results The scaling success rate for convergent validity was 100% for all domains, and the success rate for item discriminant validity was 95.8% (139/145). The internal consistency (Cronbach alpha) for the domains ranged from 0.65 to 0.89. Multitrait-multimethod correlation matrix and factor analysis revealed that the CLDQ and SF-36 measure different constructs of quality of life. Conclusion The Persian version of the CLDQ, a disease-specific questionnaire for measuring health-related quality of life, is accepted by liver transplantation candidates with adequate reliability and validity. There is no significant correlation of Child Pugh classification and MELD score with quality of life.