Translations of Measurements and Scales: Opportunities and Diversities

Abstract

Increased international collaboration in clinical trials has created a need for scale translations and cross-culturally valid instruments. The use of scales that have been poorly translated and of translations that have not been validated can lead to erroneous results. Accordingly, the quality of studies using nonvalidated translations of scales from different cultural regions should be questioned. Scale translation is important, and it is surprising that little attention has been paid to the methodology of translating measurements and scales into other languages and validating them for different cultures, especially in psychiatric and geriatric research.