TRANSLATION INTO BENGALI AND VALIDATION OF THE CERVIX CANCER SPECIFIC EORTC CX24 QUALITY OF LIFE QUESTIONNAIRE.

Abstract

Introduction: Cervical Cancer is the second most common cancer among women in India. Assessment of Quality of Life\n(QoL) of these patients is vitally important. The EORTC QLQ C30 core domain for all cancers and the Cervix Cancer\nspeci\uf001c CX24 domains are amongst the most common instruments available for assessment of QoL. However, as these are developed in English,\nand the QoL instruments need to be self answered, there is an unmet need to have vernacular (regional) language versions. We thus aimed to\ntranslate the EORTC CX24 into Bengali.\nMaterials And Methods: After necessary permissions, the CX24 English questionnaire was \uf001rst forward translated into an intermediary\nBengali version, which was then back translated into English and this was compared to the original English version. The Bengali version was\nthen pilot tested and modi\uf001cations incorporated to arrive at the \uf001nal Bengali translation.\nResults: A total of four ladies whose mother tongue was Bengali but who were \uf002uent in English translated the questionnaire – two each for the\nForward and Back translations. Discrepancies in the translation process were mainly linguistic and were solved by mutual discussion to arrive at\na culturally adapted socially acceptable literatim translation. Pilot testing was done on 15 women with breast cancer. The entire process was\nexplicitly documented and took about nine weeks.\nConclusion: The Bengali translation of the EORTC CX24 domain was done as per stipulated rules and rati\uf001ed by the EORTC. It is available for\ndownload, free of cost, from the EORTC QoL website for academic researchers across the globe. It will be of immense help to assess the QoL of\nBengali speaking cervical cancer patients and formulate better care for them.