Page 101 - SPONDYLOARTHRITIS IN COLOMBIA -

INTRODUCTION
The term spondyloarthritis (SpA) is used to describe a disease characterized by axial and entheseal inflammation, as well as extra articular manifestations such as uveitis and psoriasis 1. Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is the prototype of SpA and together with non-radiographic axial SpA (nr-axSpA), constitutes the subgroup that is termed axial SpA (axSpA). This group of patients differentiates from peripheral SpA (pSpA) by the predominance of axial- rather than peripheral manifestations as presenting feature 2, 3. Given the variable course of SpA, the evaluation of health and functioning is increasingly recognized by health care professionals to be an important outcome when assessing the impact of the disease on the patient.
The Assessment of Spondyloarthritis international Society (ASAS) Health Index (HI) has been developed to measure functioning and health in patients with SpA aiming to better describe the impact of disease in these patients 4. The ASAS-HI is a linear composite measure based on an item pool which has been developed and based on the International Classification of Functioning (ICF) core set for AS 5. This index forms a unidimensional scale providing a sum score representing a wide spectrum of different levels of functioning and contains 17 dichotomous aspects addressing the following categories: pain, emotional functions, sleep, sexual functions, mobility, self-care, community life and employment. The questions of the questionnaire range from 0 to 17, with a lower score indicating a better health status. Recently, the ASAS-HI has been translated and adapted cross-culturally into 15 languages worldwide 6.
The English version has proven to be valid and reliable for use in patients with SpA 7. Since validated Spanish patient-reported and composite measures do not exist for assessing the broad impact of health and functioning in SpA patients, the present study aimed to translate and cross-culturally
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