Developing the first Arabic quality of life for parents of children with autism (QoLA) scale: translation, cultural adaptation and psychometric validation

In this research, the first Arabic quality of life (A-QoLA) measure for the mothers and fathers of children with autism is translated and validated. While there have been several translations of the QoLA scale, to the best of our knowledge, there are no Arabic version of this scale. To translate and validate the QoLA, 407 family members (mostly parents) participated in this research. Item total correlation and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used for the scale validation process. The results show that like QoLA, all the items in Part A of the A-QoLA were positively correlated with the total score except items 2, 4, 17, and 22 (which were deleted). In addition, the Part B outcome of the item total correlation showed that all the items had a positive correlation with the overall score. The CFA results show high internal validity and consistency confirmed the two-domain structure for QoLA after it was translated into Arabic. Our results have very important implications as autism is quite common in the Arab world, and the scale can be used across several Arabic-speaking countries to understand the impact of autism on families.