French adaptation and validation of the Chronic Otitis Media Questionnaire-12 (COMQ-12)

Chronic otitis media (COM) can seriously impact quality of life (QOL). Disease-specific questionnaires are essential for an accurate assessment of this impact. There is no questionnaire available for French-speaking patients with COM. This study aims to adapt and validate the French version of the COMQ-12 questionnaire. This is a controlled, prospective study, conducted between May 2020 and December 2021. Translation was performed using a forward-backward technique, and statistical validation was performed with a COM patients and a controls adult cohorts. 100 patients (mean age 48 ± 16), and 50 controls (mean age 41 ± 16; <i>p</i> = 0.02) completed the test. Internal consistency, assessed by Cronbach’s alpha, was 0.870 for the cases group. The mean COMQ-12 total score was 23.92 ± 11.3 for cases versus 3.70 ± 6.15 for controls (<i>p</i> &lt; 0.0001). Individual items all had high discriminatory performances. The three items concerning ear discharge (Q1, Q2, Q9) had weaker correlation with the other items and the global score, but did not have a negative impact on internal consistency. The French version of the COMQ-12 is a short and easy-to-use test, with robust statistical properties, for assessing QOL in patients with COM.慢性中耳炎（Chronic otitis media, COM）可严重损害患者的生活质量（Quality of Life, QOL）。疾病特异性问卷是精准评估此类疾病对生活质量影响的必要工具。目前尚无适用于法语区慢性中耳炎患者的专用问卷。本研究旨在适配并验证COMQ-12问卷的法语版本。本研究为一项对照前瞻性研究，实施周期为2020年5月至2021年12月。问卷翻译采用正向-反向翻译法完成，统计验证阶段则纳入成人慢性中耳炎患者队列与健康成人对照队列开展。共有100例患者（平均年龄48±16岁）与50名对照者（平均年龄41±16岁；*p*=0.02）完成了全部测试。经克朗巴赫α系数（Cronbach’s alpha）评估，病例组的内部一致性为0.870。病例组的COMQ-12总分均值为23.92±11.3，对照组为3.70±6.15，两组差异具有显著统计学意义（*p*<0.0001）。各单项条目均具备较高的区分效能。涉及耳漏的3个条目（Q1、Q2、Q9）与其余条目及总分的相关性较弱，但未对内部一致性产生负面影响。COMQ-12问卷法语版是一款简短易用的评估工具，可用于评估慢性中耳炎患者的生活质量，且具备可靠的统计学特性。