Cross-cultural adaptation of study instruments is a difficult, time-consuming, but arguably cost-effective process. If conducted properly, it has the advantage that the translated study instruments are accurate, easy to understand, accessible, and culturally appropriate to the target audience and produce reliable and valid data. This article explores issues, challenges, and solutions for translating a set of research instruments used in a randomized, controlled trial for four separate community languages (Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek, Italian).
Brislin, R. W.1970. Back-translation for cross-cultural research. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology1 (3): 185–216.
2.
Brislin,R.W.1986. The wording and translation of research instruments. In Field methods in cross-cultural research, edited by W. J. Lonner and J. Berry, 136–164. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
3.
Brislin, R. W., W. J. Lonner, and R. M. Thorndike. 1973. Cross cultural research methods. New York: John Wiley.
4.
Campbell, D. A., R. Brislin, V. Stewart, and O. Werner. 1970. Back-translation and other translation techniques in cross-cultural research. International Journal of Psychology30: 681–692.
5.
Cardona, M., L. Jorm, M. Williamson, and T. Chey. 1995. The Blacktown health survey of people from non-English speaking background. Sydney: Western Sector Public Health Unit, Western Sydney Area Health Service.
6.
Dongbo, F., F. Hua, P. McGowan, S. Yi-e, Z. Lizhen, Y. Huiqin, M. Jianguo, Z. Shitai, D. Yongming, and W. Zhihua. 2003. Implementation and quantitative evaluation of chronic disease self-management programme in Shanghai, China: Randomized controlled trial. Bulletin of the World Health Organization81 (3): 174–182.
7.
Erkut, S., O. Alarcon, C. Coll, L. Tropp, and G. Vazquez. 1999. The dual-focus approach to creating bilingual measures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology30 (2): 206–218.
8.
Gallucci, G., and J. Smolinski. 2001. Treatment contracts for patients with hepatitis C, psychiatric illness, and substance abuse. Psychosomatics42 (4): 353–355.
9.
Geisinger, K. F.1994. Cross-cultural normative assessment: Translation and adaptation issues influencing the normative interpretation of assessment instruments. Psychological Assessment4: 304–312.
10.
Guillemin, F.1995. Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of health status measures. Scandinavian Journal of Rheumatology24: 61–63.
11.
Hilton, A., and M. Skrutkowski. 2002. Translating instruments into other languages: Development and testing processes. Cancer Nursing25 (1): 1–7.
12.
Lorig, K., V. Gonzalez, and P. Ritter. 1999. Community-based Spanish language arthritis education program: A randomized trial. Medical Care37 (9): 957–963.
13.
Lorig, K., P. Ritter, A. Stewart, D. Sobel, B. Brown, A. Bandura, V. Gonzalez, D. Laurent, and H. Holman. 2001. Chronic disease self-management program: 2-year status and health care utilization outcomes. Medical Care39 (11): 1217–1223.
14.
Miller, G., and J. Beebe-Centre. 1956. Some psychological methods for evaluating the quality of translation. Mechanical Translation3: 73–80.
15.
Mitchell, R. 1966. The problems and possibilities of measuring social attitude in African social surveys. Paper presented at the ninth annual meeting of the African Studies Association, Bloomington, Indiana.
16.
Naughton, M., and I. Wiklund. 1996. A critical review of six dimension-specific measures of health related quality of life used in cross cultural research. In The international assessment of health-related quality of life: Theory, tramslation, measurement and analysis, edited by S. Schumacher and R. Berzon, 39–70. Oxford: Rapid Communications.
17.
Nicholson, N. S.1995. Translation and interpretation. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics15: 42–62.
18.
Nida, E.1964. Towards a science of translating. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill.
19.
Prince, R., and W. Mombour. 1967. A technique for improving linguistic equivalence in cross-cultural surveys. International Journal of Social Psychiatry13: 229–237.
20.
Schuman, H.1966. The random probe: A technique for evaluating the quality of closed questions. American Sociological Review31: 218–222.
21.
Small, R., J. Yelland, and J. Lumley. 1999. Cross cultural research: Trying to do it better. Enhancing data quality. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health23: 39–95.
22.
Sperber, A., and R. DeVellis. 1994. Cross-cultural translation: Methodology and validation. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology25 (4): 501–524.
23.
Spilka, I.1968. On translating the mental status schedule. Meta13 (1): 4–20.
24.
Werner, O., and D. Campbell. 1970. Cultural influences upon the perception of implicative relationships among concepts and the analysis of values. In A handbook of cultural anthropology, edited by R. Naroll and R. Cohen. New York: American Museum of Natural History.