Translation, validation and cultural adaptation of the 'activities of daily living' scale (ADLS)

Objectives: To perform the translation, cultural adaptation and validation of the "Knee Outcome Survey- Activities of Daily Living Scale"(ADLS) into Portuguese, as well as to check its measurement, reproducibility and validity properties in order to make it useful as a specific instrument for evaluating symptoms in Brazilian patients with knee injuries during their daily living activities. Methods: Two interviews were performed; in the first interview, the questionnaire was applied along with Lysholm's, SF-36 and VAS (investigator 1). Approximately 30 minutes after the first interview, the same patients answered only the ADLS (investigator 2). After a break of 7 to 10 days, a third additional interview with the ADLS was applied (investigator 2). Results: The sample was constituted of 53 subjects, with mean age of 33.0566 years, with the most frequent pathology being ligamentar injury (56.6%). The Spearman's index used for inter-investigator reproducibility was 0.986 (a=0.05, r<0.01), and for intra-investigator reproducibility was 0.980 (a=0.05, r<0.01). Conclusion: The Portuguese language version of ADLS questionnaire is a useful instrument for assessing daily living activities of Brazilian patients with knee injuries.