Background:
Involving patients in health care is increasingly acknowledged
as the best way to empower patients to manage their illness. Whilst
the involvement of patients is laudable and widely recognised,
how much they want to be involved needs to be ascertained. Research
has shown that inappropriate provision of information to patients
can increase their anxieties towards illness and alter perceptions
of medicines’ usefulness, consequently impacting on medicines’
taking behaviour. Tools have been validated in the UK to identify
information desires, perceived usefulness of medicines and anxiety
felt about illness. There is a need to adapt validated tools for
use in other settings and countries. This paper is the first of
a series describing the processes involved in the adaptation and
validation of these.
Aim: to review and adapt the processes established to translate
and back translate scales and tools in practice.
Methods: The survey tool was translated and back-translated according
to published guidelines, subsequently tested in a sample of medical
patients and further refined by seeking health care professionals’
perceptions and input from lay people.
Results: Data demonstrates the importance of including various
perspectives in this process, through which sequential modifications
were made to the original scales. Issues relating to religious
beliefs, educational and health literacy differences between countries
highlight the relevance of taking cultural values into account.
Some led to significant modifications, discussed in this first
paper, and tested for validity and reliability in a second paper.
