Culturally congruent and linguistically correct translations of proms as a basis for communication in healthcare

Abstract

Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are questionnaires used in clinical settings to provide information of a patient’s health status. In encounters with ethnic minority patients, translations of these are needed. However, producing linguistically correct and culturally congruent translations of PROMs is complicated. The aim of the study was to investigate the challenges of translating PROMs according to standard translatory rules. The methods were literature research, forward-and-back translations, discussions with those doing the translations, and in-depth interviews with other translators. Thematic analysis. The findings showed that forward-and-back translation was not found to result in meaningful translations for patients. One key issue was poor/incorrect translations; this often occurred due to translators being unfamiliar with biomedical terminology, the exact concepts do not exist as such in the target language, the professional terms are not used in every day/oral language, and/or the patient's level of education made understanding the PROMs difficult. Successful medical treatment depends on PROMs being understood and correctly filled in. Poor/incorrect translations may cause important background information to be missed, which can potentially result in insufficient treatment or even misdiagnosis.