PedsQLTM 4.0 Generic Core Infant Scales Parents Report for Infants (ages13-24 months). Linguistic validation from original US English version to italian version

The purspose of this research was to show the translation and linguistic validation of the PedsQLTM 4.0 Generic Core Infant Scales Parents Report for Infants (ages 13-24 months) from its original English version to Italian language. Methods: The linguistic validation consists in three steps: a) different forward translations from the original US English instrument to Italian; this step includes the drawing of a “reconciliation” version (version 1); b) backward translations from the Italian reconciliation version to US English; c) patient testing: the second version of the questionnaire (obtained after the backward translations) has to be tested on a panel of a minimmum of 5 respondents, throughout cognitive interviewing methodology, in order to obtain the final italian version of the PedsQLTM Parents Report for Infants (ages 13-24 months). In this report we summarize the third step of this process. To study the content validity, the applicability and comprehension of our questionnarie traslation, we tested it through a qualitative methodology in a sample of parents whose children were hospitalized in Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital with two different kinds of interview: 4 parents responded to the questions posed through a “thinkaloud interview” and 3 parents responded to the questionnaire and to a “respondent debriefing” interview. Results and conclusion: We modified the main question of each section and also one of the possible answer in order to maintain the Italian traslation that appeared in others PedsQLTM. We did not modify the questions of each section because respondents expressed that are clearly comprehensible and easy to understand.