A validated translation of a survey for measuring incontinence knowledge in Chinese-speaking American immigrants

• Published in: International Urogynecology Journal 2017-06, Vol.28 (6), p.851-856
• Main Authors: Ju, Rujin, Siddiqui, Nazema, Garrett, Joanne, Feng, Liping, Heit, Michael
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Agreements; Asian Continental Ancestry Group - psychology; Bilingualism; China - ethnology; Emigrants and Immigrants - psychology; Female; Gynecology; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice - ethnology; Humans; Knowledge; Language; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Original Article; Psychometrics; Reproducibility of Results; Surveys and Questionnaires - standards; Taiwan - ethnology; Translations; United States; Urinary Incontinence - psychology; Urology
• ISSN: 0937-3462; 1433-3023
• DOI: 10.1007/s00192-016-3215-1

Introduction and hypothesis Urinary incontinence is common amongst Chinese immigrants. These women are a rapidly growing population in the USA who require unique assessment tools due to language barriers. Presently, there are no Chinese language surveys to assess knowledge of urinary incontinence. Our goal was to translate and validate a urinary incontinence knowledge survey from English into Chinese. Methods The English language Urinary Incontinence Quiz (UIQ) developed and validated by Branch et al. for the Educational Demonstration of Urinary Continence Assessment and Treatment for the Elderly program assesses general knowledge of urinary incontinence as a disease entity. We translated it into Chinese using the forward translation/back translation technique. The Chinese and English versions were then administered to bilingual volunteers in a nonrandomized order during a single encounter. Their responses were analyzed using Cohen’s kappa coefficient to establish the validity of the translated knowledge survey. Results Minimal reconciliation was needed in construction of the Chinese survey. Minor English grammatical corrections were made to the back-translated English survey. One question testing two knowledge concepts was separated into two questions to allow clear testing of both concepts individually. Twenty-one bilingual participants performed the validity testing. Over 50% (8 out of 15) of the questions showed nearly perfect agreement with a kappa coefficient >0.80, 5 out of the 15 questions showed substantial agreement with kappa coefficients between 0.61 and 0.8 and two questions showed moderate agreement with kappa coefficients between 0.4 and 0.6. Conclusions We validated a translation of the UIQ for assessment of urinary incontinence knowledge in Chinese-speaking immigrants to the USA.