Abstract
Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a brief behavioural screening questionnaire for children and teenagers aged 3 to 16 years. It is available in 66 languages, and gaining more popularity world wide. Chinese translation of SDQ is available and has been used in clinical practice and research. We undertook the exercise to back-translate the current Chinese translation and it showed a number of differences compared to the original English SDQ. The differences and concerns include: (1) the flow and grammar of Chinese translation as well as wrongly written Chinese characters; (2) translated words that have deviated from the original meaning; (3) significant numbers of wording that are somewhat different from the original English version; (4) addition of auxiliary verbs that do not exist in original English version; and (5) the current Chinese SDQ is a general questionnaire for all age groups that does not observe the differences of wording that exist in the English versions.An accurate translated Chinese version is important for researchers, clinicians and educators who work in the Chinese communities. There is an urgent need to review the translation of the Chinese SDQ version before more studies use it in the field.
Highlights
An accurate translated Chinese version is important for researchers, clinicians and educators who work in the Chinese communities
There is an urgent need to review the translation of the Chinese Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) version before more studies use it in the field
It is obvious that SDQ will gain increasing popularity world wide, and an accurate translated Chinese version is important for researchers, clinicians and educationists who work in the Chinese population
Summary
It is obvious that SDQ will gain increasing popularity world wide, and an accurate translated Chinese version is important for researchers, clinicians and educationists who work in the Chinese population. There is an urgent need to review the translation of the Chinese SDQ version before more studies use it in the field. An exercise was undertaken by two authors of this letter (Toh TH and Ting TH) to back-translate the current Chinese SDQ independently. Ting TH had no prior knowledge of the SDQ before the translation. Both backtranslations were similar, and they are presented in Additional files 1, 2 and 3. The flow and grammar of the current Chinese SDQ are not smooth, with wrongly written Chinese characters. ❍ Items 2, 7, 12 & 23 in Parent/Teacher version ❍ Items 2, 12, 14, 17 & 23 in Student version ❍ Question 1 to 4 of the impact supplement in all three versions ❍ Two wrongly written Chinese characters
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