International Society for Quality of Life Research meeting abstracts. Quality of Life Research 20 (Suppl 1) 88-89, Abstract#3014/424.
Poster presented at the International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL) for the 18th Annual Conference, Denver, Colorado, USA – 26th-29th October 2011.

Aims:
To review existing same-language versions in English, Spanish, French and German of the Diabetes Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire (DTSQ) and of the Well-Being Questionnaire (W-BQ12) both developed by Clare Bradley (Bradley and Lewis 1990) and linguistically validated for specific countries using a gold standard translation methodology including clinician review and patient testing.

To identify patterns of similarities/differences between the two questionnaires and among languages, in order to inform future adaptations.

Methods:
Collect the existing DTSQ versions in English (12), Spanish (12), French (5) and German (3), as well as of the W-BQ12 versions in English (5), Spanish (5) and French (3).
Count and analyse the linguistic differences in the instructions, the items and the response options on the basis of semantics, syntax, discourse and culture.

Results:
In all four languages, differences are mainly semantic with several grammatical changes in Spanish.
In the DTSQ, instructions, items 4 (convenience) and 5 (flexibility) showed the most differences. In the W-BQ12 major differences were noted in vocabulary describing emotions.
Unlike the Spanish DTSQ, where differences seem to depend on geographic distance, the English versions are more linked to the local culture, and India, the Philippines and Malaysia account for more changes than other English-speaking countries.
Spanish adaptations required more changes than other language adaptations and the nature of the changes in the two questionnaires was identical (i.e. Anglicisms, use of tense and repetitive sentence structure).
Canadian French and French for Cameroon account in the DTSQ for the largest number of changes; the first because of Quebecois and its contact with US, Cameroon because of social and educational issues. While Swiss French is almost identical to French for France, we have an opposite trend in German, where the Swiss version differs markedly from the one used in Germany.

Conclusions:
This comparison suggests the occurrence of common patterns of similarities/differences in same-language adaptations. Consistent patterns include item conceptual difficulties and the kind of variations (i.e. local culture in English, geographical distance in Spanish). These observations suggest the possibility of predicting differences and facilitating solutions in future adaptations.