AB1446 TRANSLATION AND CROSS-CULTURAL ADAPTATION OF COPING WITH RHEUMATIC STRESSORS (CORS) INTO TURKISH LANGUAGE

Abstract

BackgroundCoping with Rheumatic Stressors (CORS) is a valid and reliable instrument that measures eight coping strategies directed at pain, limitations and dependency as the most prominent chronic stressors of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) (1). This questionnaire has also been used in axial Spondyloarthritis (ax-SpA) previously (2).ObjectivesTo describe the translation and cross-cultural adaptation process of the CORS into Turkish as well as its cognitive debriefing to test the conceptual equivalence of the translated version among patients with RA, radiographic (r) and non-radiographic (nr) axSpA.MethodsThe CORS was firstly translated into Turkish (by 2 bilingual translators who are native speaker for Turkish) and then back-translated into Dutch (by 2 bilingual translators who are native speaker for Dutch) following the Beaton’s method (Figure 1) (3). Back-translation procedure was done totally blinded to the original version. After the review of the Turkish version by an expert committee that included translators, two patients and the research team, a consensus was reached on the pre-final version. Using the pre-final version, the field test with cognitive debriefing involved a sample of 10 RA and 10 axSpA patients with different gender, age, disease duration, and educational background. After some small changes resulting from the feedback from patients the final version was obtained.Figure 1.Flow-chart of the translation and cross-cultural adaptation processResultsThe CORS was translated into Turkish following the forward-backward procedure. Minor incompatibilities arose from the translation process of CORS which have been easily resolved by the expert committee meetings. For example, `Ik concentreer me op iets anders` was translated as `Başka seylere odaklanirim` which is in English `I concentrate on something else`. The discrepancy was raised whether to use a word equivalent `to concentrate` or `to focus` and decision was made to use `to focus` while there was no exact Turkish word of `to concentrate`. A total of 10 patients with RA [9 females, mean (SD) age of 49 (13)] and 10 patients with axSpA [7 females, mean (SD) age of 38 (10), r-AxSpA, n=7, nr-AxSpA, n= 3] participated in the field test. Mean (SD) time to complete the CORS was 8.3 (3.4) minutes. Cognitive debriefing showed that items of the CORS are clear, relevant, understandable, and easy to complete. Cognitive debriefing revealed that the wording of one item had to be changed to provide better understanding (Section B, item 22 the word `stop` in Dutch and `stop` in English which was translated as `durdurmak` in Turkish changed to `sonlandirmak`.ConclusionThe final Turkish version of the CORS showed acceptable linguistic validity and can be used in both clinical practice and for research purposes, in patients with RA and in patients with axSpA. However, to implement Turkish-CORS, further assessment is ongoing to test its psychometric properties (validity and reliability).