Standardized Outcomes Measure in Urdu – Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation Outcome Measure – Translation, Cultural Challenges and Implications
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52053/jpap.v6i2.364Keywords:
CORE-OM, Culture, Language, Mental Health, Translation, Self-report Questionnaire, UrduAbstract
One global public health challenge is the increasing recognition of real magnitude of mental health problems and the need for effective, and affordable interventions and prevention strategies. The development of such resources requires usable measurement tools which should ideally bring some inter-cultural and trans-linguistic comparability of scores while also being genuinely culturally appropriate in the target populations. The current study describes the translation and adaptation of a widely used self-report measure, the CORE-OM (Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure) from English into Urdu. The translation and the whole process was run across both the UK and Pakistan. This process followed a stringent protocol involving 20 independent forward translations, a focus group discussion and finally two back translations and a vital qualitative field testing with ten people across Pakistan. A number of items were challenging to translate into Urdu, some for linguistic reasons and more for cultural reasons and the qualitative field testing proved vital to achieve a final version that was acceptable across diversity of geography and language (Urdu as first, second or even third language). The findings provide reassuring evidence that the translation was culturally appropriate and successful in achieving a measure that is now available to use worldwide, without reproduction fees.
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