SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT

Seminar

EQUIVALENCE OF CROSS-CULTURAL HEALTH-RELATED
QUALITY OF LIFE MEASURES

by

Dr Cindy L K Lam
Associate Professor
Department of Medicine, Family Medicine Unit
University of Hong Kong

on

Date: Friday, 23rd September 2005
Time: 1430 - 1530hrs
Venue: S4 Level 5 Room 16, Tutorial Room

Abstract:

Cross-cultural measuring instruments are needed to measure health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in global clinical trials and multi-ethnic population studies so that data from different cultures can be standardized, compared and pooled together. A HRQOL measure often needs to be translated and adapted from its original language and culture to others before it can be applied across different cultures. This poses additional challenges when an instrument originated from the Western culture needs to be translated and adapted to an Asian population. The validity and psychometric quality in the target population are essential but not adequate properties of a cross-cultural HRQOL measure. A cross-cultural HRQOL measure also needs to be equivalent in all the cultures concerned. This seminar will review the six most important types of cross-cultural equivalence: conceptual, item, semantic, operational, measurement and functional. The methods of testing cross-cultural equivalences of HRQOL measures will be discussed with illustration from the experience of the MOS 36-item Short Form (SF-36) Health Survey and the SF-12 Summary Scales.

ALL ARE WELCOME