TRANSLATING HEALTH-STATUS QUESTIONNAIRES AND EVALUATING THEIR QUALITY- THE IQOLA PROJECT APPROACH

This article describes the methods adopted by the International Qualit y of Life Assessment (I(ZOLA) project to translate the SF-36 Health Su rvey. Translation methods included the production of forward and backw ard translations, use of difficulty and quality ratings, pilot testing , and cross-cultural comparison of the translation Work. Experience to date suggests that the SF-36 can be adapted for use in other countrie s with relatively minor changes to the content of the form, providing support for the use of these translations in multinational clinical tr ials and other studies. The most difficult items to translate were phy sical functioning items, which used examples of activities and distanc es that are not common outside of the United States; items that used c olloquial expressions such as pep or blue; and the social functioning items. Quality ratings were uniformly high across countries. While the IQOLA approach to translation and validation was developed for use wi th the SF-36, it is applicable to other translation efforts. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.