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ALBANIAN MEDICAL JOURNAL SUPPLEMENTCross-cultural adaptation of a questionnaire aboutcompetencies of family physicians in Kosovo frompractitioners and policymakers perspectiveGazmend Bojaj 1,2 , Katarzyna Czabanowska 3 , Fitim Skeraj 2 , Zejdush Tahiri 2 ,Genc Burazeri 2,31Principal Family Medicine Center, Kline, Kosovo;2Faculty of Public Health, University of Medicine, Tirana, Albania;3Department of International Health, School for Public Health and Primary Care (CAPHRI), Faculty of Health,Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.Competencies in quality improvement are importantfor family physicians in order to foster patient care.In Kosovo, we validated an instrument developedwith the support of the EC Lifelong LearningProgram addressing family physicians competencylevel from the primaryhealth care users perspective.The instrument was administered to a representativesample of primary health care users in Kosovo agede 18 years in December 2012. All individualsincluded in this validation exercise were asked toassess, from their perspective, the level ofcompetency of their respective family physicians, orgeneral practitioners regarding several key domainsof primary health care services including: patientcare and safety (8 questions), effectiveness andefficiency (7 questions), equity and ethical practice (8questions), methods and tools (5 questions),leadership and management (4 questions), andcontinuing professional development (5 questions).Answers for each question of the instrument rangedfrom 1 ( novice =physicians have little or noknowledge/ ability, or no previous experience of thecompetency described and need close supervisionor instruction) to 5 ( expert =physicians are theprimary sources of knowledge and information inthe medical field). An overall summary score(including 37 questions; range: 37-185) and a subscalesummary score for each domain were calculated forall participants. Socioeconomic data were alsocollected (age, sex, educational level, employmentstatus and income level).Thus, we validated an international instrument in theKosovo context which aims to capture primaryhealth care users self-perceived level of competencyof their family physicians regarding differentdomains of health care services. Currently, thisquestionnaire is being administered on a nationwidescale including a large representative sample ofprimary health care users in different regions ofKosovo.Keywords: competencies, cross-cultural adaptation, family physician, general practitioner, Kosovo, primary health care,validation.64 ALBANIAN MEDICAL JOURNAL SUPPLEMENT