Objective:
The aim of this prospective cohort study was to translate, validate and perform a cultural adaptation of the Polish version of the Swiss Spinal Stenosis Questionnaire (P-SSSQ), a disease-specific questionnaire for assessing symptom severity, physical function and satisfaction with treatment in patients with lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS).

Material and methods:
Patients were prospectively recruited at two orthopedic centres in Krakow, Poland, between January 2011 – October 2016. During the interview, each patient completed the P-SSSQ, SF-36 Health Survey, and a demographic data questionnaire. After translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and pilot testing, assessment was made of the internal consistency, test–retest reliability, construct validity, and responsiveness of the P-SSSQ subscales.

Results:
Finally, 171 consecutive patients were included in the study. Cronbach’s alpha and ICC values were above 0.8 for all three subscales of the P-SSSQ. The symptom severity domain was highly negatively correlated with physical functioning and bodily pain of SF-36, with Pearson correlation coefficients of -0.68 and -0.63, respectively. The physical function domain was highly negatively correlated with physical functioning (r = -0.62). The satisfaction subscale was also highly negatively correlated with the change in the symptom severity (r = −0.61) and physical function scale (r = −0.65).

Conclusions:
The proposed version of the P-SSSQ showed excellent measurement properties and can be considered validated for use in Polish. It is easy to understand, quick to complete, and the psychometric properties of the original version are maintained.