[Spanish version of the Autonomic Symptom Profile test].

INTRODUCTION

The Autonomic Symptom Profile (ASP) is a self-administered questionnaire that has been validated in English to assess autonomic symptoms and to differentiate between patients and healthy subjects according to said symptoms. Our group has studied its application in Spanish.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

After translating the English version into Spanish and then back-translating it, the reliability and validity of criteria in the Spanish version of the ASP test were evaluated in a sample of 50 subjects (27 controls and 23 patients). All the patients with symptoms of autonomic dysfunction were studied by means of the Ewing and Clarke battery.

RESULTS

The reliability of the Spanish version of the ASP was high and an interclass correlation coefficient of 0.93 was obtained. A score of 47 or over in the test yields a sensitivity of 73.9% and a specificity of 100% for the detection of autonomic dysfunction. Furthermore, the score in the Spanish version of the ASP test showed statistically significant differences between the group of patients and the control group.

CONCLUSIONS

The Spanish version of the ASP is reliable and makes it possible to distinguish between patients with autonomic dysfunction and control subjects. As far as we are aware, this is the first test to evaluate the symptoms of the autonomic nervous system in a global manner and in Spanish.