BACKGROUND: Quality of life (QoL) is the sense of well-being perceived by 
people. The improvement of parkinsonian patient's QoL is a crucial goal for 
clinicians involved in rehabilitative care. In order to provide an appropriate 
endpoint for the assessment of the effectiveness of rehabilitation treatments on 
QoL of patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD), in this study we have first 
translated and then validated the Belastungsfragebogen Parkinson kurzversion 
(BELA-P-k). This tool allows evaluating separately two crucial aspects: i) the 
loss of personal autonomy in activities of daily life and ii) the psychological 
and psychosocial impact of the disease.
METHODS: The BELA-P-k was translated from Dutch into Italian. Subsequently 202 
PD patients filled out the questionnaire. Patients were also evaluated by using 
the Parkinson Disease Questionnaire -39 (PDQ39), the Unified Parkinson's Disease 
Rating Scale (UPDRS), the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Frontal 
Assessment Battery (FAB).
RESULTS: The internal consistency for total of two different scores Bothered by 
(Bb) and Need for Help (NfH) was excellent (p = 0.91) for both categories. The 
correlation between Bb and NfH categories was significant and strong, 
very-strong, ranging from 0.78 to 0.88 (all p < 0.0001). Finally, the value of 
Spearman r for the relationship between Bb and NfH items and PDQ 39 values were 
significant (p ≤ 0.003).
CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, we validated the BELA-P-k and demonstrated that it 
is an appropriate and potentially useful tool for assessing QoL in the 
management of PD.
TRIALS REGISTRATION: This trial was retrospectively registered with 
ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03073044.