362 Abstracts ing of the state health care system, and the society experi- encing socioeconomic hardships. METHODS: In 222 verified mild to moderate EH (mean age 49.4  0.9 years) as well as in 77 age-, gender-, body mass- and social status-matched healthies (H) the QL as- sessment was performed using the well-validated, self- administered questionnaires: The Giessen Somatic Com- plaints Questionnaire (GSC) and The General Well-Being Adjustment Scale (GWB). RESULTS: The QL tests revealed significantly lower QL scores on all GSC and GWB subscales in the investigated Belarusian EH compared with H (Gastric Complaints, Pains, Cardiac Complaints, Exhaustion, Anxiety, Depres- sion, Well-Being, Self-Control, General Health, Vitality) with the total Complaints Index (mean  SEM) 52.4  2.6 vs. 22.5  1.9 points (p  0.001), and the total GWB in- dex 78.6  1.3 vs. 94.5  2.1 points (p  0.01), respec- tively. QL scores did not correlate (Spearman) with office blood pressure and age. Females demonstrated less favor- able scores on all subscales compared with males in both groups (Mann-Whitney, p  0.01). Educational level, oc- cupation, physical activity had no impact on the QL (ANOVA). There was an association of the total QL with alcohol and coffee consumption as well as smoking (stan- dardized interview), while abstinents had the lowest QL scores (p  0.05). The QL total indexes were significantly (p  0.05) worse in the EH treated on regular basis com- pared with EH who did not treat their known hyperten- sion. The high QL score, smoking, drinking and male gen- der were revealed as factors of poor compliance with previous routine medical care. CONCLUSIONS: Gender and certain life-style factors in- fluence the QL profile of EH living in Belarus and relate to compliance, this requiring careful consideration during hy- pertension management. QL2 PSYCHOMETRIC EQUIVALENCE EVALUATION OF FIVE NON-WESTERN-LANGUAGE TRANSLATED VERSIONS OF THE FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF CANCER THERAPY—GENERAL (FACT-G) VERSION 4 Eremenco S , Chang C-H, Lent L, Cella D Center on Outcomes, Research, and Education (CORE), Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, Evanston, IL, USA OBJECTIVES: A rigorous translation methodology is es- sential in order to develop equivalent language versions of health-related quality of life questionnaires for use in clini- cal research and trials. Using differential item functioning (DIF) within the item response theory framework to aug- ment traditional reliability analysis provides additional evi- dence to evaluate whether the translated versions are psy- chometrically equivalent. METHODS: The Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT) Measurement System translation meth- odology consists of 2 forward translations, 1 reconciled version, a back-translation of the reconciled version, and 3 independent reviews by bilingual experts. The translated versions are then pretested with at least 15 patients in the respective native countries. In this presentation, we focus on five translated versions of the FACT-G (Hungarian, Jap- anese, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian) that were each tested with at least 40 patients and analyzed; the total sam- ple was 316 oncology patients. The internal consistency of the 27-item core FACT-G was evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha. Rasch analysis was used to determine the item diffi- culty hierarchy of each language version, and then DIF analysis was used to determine psychometric equivalence in relation to the English version (n = 131). RESULTS: The 27 core FACT-G items included in every FACIT measure showed high reliability in these five lan- guage versions, with Cronbach’s alpha ranging from .87 (Japanese) to .93 (Polish). Items exhibiting potential DIF and their possible causes were summarized. CONCLUSION: Reliability and DIF analyses confirm that the five translated versions are psychometrically valid and comparable. The FACIT translation methodology has been effective in adapting a North American questionnaire to vastly different cultural contexts and creating valid versions for cross-cultural comparisons. Further research and devel- opment of new language versions is needed, especially in non-Western European languages to extend QoL research possibilities internationally. QL3 ANTIPSYCHOTIC TREATMENT AND CHANGES IN HEALTH RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE IN PATIENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA USING EQ-5D Badia X 1 , Casado A 1 , Sacristán JA 2 , Gómez JC 2 , Gregor KJ 3 1 Public Health Institute of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain; 2 Eli Lilly and Company, Madrid, Spain; 3 Eli Lilly and Company, Windlesham Surrey, UK OBJECTIVES: The use of antipsychotics in the treatment of schizophrenia has changed patient connections to their surroundings, placing them in greater contact with their family and the environment in which they carry out daily activities. The purpose of this analysis of patients in the naturalistic setting was to evaluate the changes in health related quality of life (HRQL) associated with antipsy- chotic drug therapy and to evaluate the sensitivity of the Euroqol-5D (EQ-5D) as a tool for measuring HRQL in patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: The study included 2,128 patients with schizophrenia who were treated with olanzapine, 821 who were treated with risperidone or haloperidol, and small numbers of patients on other antipsychotics. Sociodemo- graphic, clinical (global clinical impression, global activity evaluation scale, presence of extrapyramidal symptoms) and the EQ-5D as a generic tool for the measurement of the HRQL were included as variables. The patients were evaluated at treatment initiation and after 6 months. RESULTS: Olanzapine-treated patients showed the larg- est effect size on the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) (0.98)