Adaptation and Validation of the Ukrainian Version of the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 (MMAS-8) in Patients with HBV and HCV Infection

Despite the effective current approaches to the treatment of HBV and HCV infections, maintaining long-term adherence to antiviral drugs in patients is a challenge. The need to assess adherence to treatment requires a simple and effective tool for this, which is the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 (MMAS-8) questionnaire, recognized by the researchers from different countries. However, until now, there was no Ukrainian-language version of this questionnaire. The objective: to translate, carry out a cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Ukrainian version of the MMAS-8 treatment adherence scale. Materials and methods. According to the recommendations of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR), we translated and cross-culturally adapted the original English version of the MMAS-8 questionnaire. 60 patients with HBV or HCV infection took part in the pilot testing of the Ukrainian-language version of the MMAS-8 questionnaire, including 46 men and 14 women. The comprehensibility and complexity of the Ukrainian version of the MMAS-8 was assessed using a Likert scale. To calculate the reliability of the Ukrainian-language version of the MMAS-8 questionnaire, a repeated survey (test-retest method) was conducted with an interval of 7 days. Internal consistency of questions was determined using Cronbach’s α coefficient. Results. It was established that among the surveyed patients, 80% had a high degree of adherence to treatment, 18.3% – an average degree, and 1.7% – a low degree of adherence to treatment. The comprehensibility index and the difficulty index of the translated version of the MMAS-8 were 1.0/1.0, respectively. The reliability of the Ukrainian-language version of the MMAS-8 was established with a reliable correlation coefficient between test-retest results (r = 0.89). The internal consistency of the Ukrainian version of the MMAS-8 questionnaire (by Cronbach’s α reliability method) was 0.74 at an acceptable level of > 0.7. Conclusions. During the translation, adaptation and validation of the Ukrainian version of the MMAS-8, the recommendations of the ISPOR guidelines were taken into account, following which it is possible to avoid bias and ensure the maximum semantic and cultural relevance of the questionnaire. The results of the study demonstrate that the Ukrainian-language version of the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 (MMAS-8) is understandable and uncomplicated for patients, a reliable and valid tool for assessing adherence to treatment in patients with HBV and HCV infection both in clinical practice and in scientific research.