O objetivo deste estudo foi adaptar e validar o Foot Health Status Questionnaire (FHSQ) avaliando suas propriedades de medida. Este instrumento foi traduzido, traduzido de volta para o inglês, avaliado por comitê multidisciplinar e submetido a pré-teste, gerando o FHSQ-Br. O FHSQ-Br foi submetido a teste de campo em um grupo de estudo composto por 65 pacientes com Artrite Reumatóide (AR) para avaliar a confiabilidade teste-reteste, a consistência interna e a validade do construto. A validade do construto foi testada correlacionando os escores do instrumento com dados clínicos e laboratoriais usados para avaliar a AR. Este estudo demonstrou que o FHSQ-Br é um instrumento confiável, consistente e válido, útil na avaliação da saúde dos pés, sendo passível de adaptação para diferentes culturas

The purpose of this study was to conduct a cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Foot Health Status Questionnaire (FHSQ) evaluating its measurement properties. All ten domains of the FHSQ were translated into Portuguese by two Brazilian translators creating Version 1. This version was back-translated by two native English-speaking teachers who made suggestions for Version 1, creating Version 2. A multidisciplinary committee was formed to test the instrument’s semantic, idiomatic, experiential and conceptual equivalences. After being reformulated and approved by the committee, Version 3 was pre-tested on a group of patients from the Rheumatology Service of the Hospital das Clínicas. They answered this version and made suggestions for the better understanding of the instructions, questions and response option. The FHSQ-Br was then created. The translated and adapted version was submitted to field test on a study group composed of sixty-five Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients to evaluate test-retest reliability, internal consistency and construct validity. The construct validity of the FHSQ-Br was tested correlating the scores to clinical and laboratory parameters commonly used to assess RA (Health Assessment Questionnaire; Numbered Rating Scale for foot pain; foot X-rays; erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein). The cultural adaptation of the FHSQ was successfully accomplished, since patients suggested changes in only three items of the instrument during the pre-test phase. In the field test, the intra-class correlation coefficients showed high reliability for both intra- and inter-observer correlations. Internal consistency coefficients were statistically significant (p<0.05) for all domains. As for the evaluation of the construct validity, each domain revealed correlations with a specific group of parameters, according to what the domains were intended to measure. The FHSQ was cross-culturally adapted generating a reliable, consistent and valid instrument. This study has proven the FHSQ-Br to be a useful tool to evaluate foot health in systemic diseases and is easily adaptable to different cultures