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Translation and adaptation of North American questionnaires for the assessment of skills and knowledge in the Brazilian psychiatric practice

INTRODUCTION: The Brazilian literature does not make reference to standardized instruments and guidelines aimed at the assessing psychiatric teaching and practice. As a contribution to the theme, the authors of the present study translated and adapted a North American instrument designed to evaluate skills and knowledge in the psychiatric practice. The objectives of this study were: 1) to describe the methodology used to translate two questionnaires on skills and knowledge of psychiatry; 2) to summarize the difficulties faced in the process of translating and adapting the questionnaires; 3) to make the questionnaires available in Portuguese. METHOD: The methodology comprised the following stages: first professional version; evaluation by bilingual psychiatrists; evaluation by monolingual psychiatrists; final version in Portuguese; independent back translation by a second professional translator; final review by the first author of the original paper. The authors systematically followed all stages. RESULTS: Eleven of the translation and adaptation problems faced during the process referred to linguistic equivalence, whereas five problems were related to technical equivalence. DISCUSSION: Empirical research in psychiatric education is a new and increasingly important field. It will improve the quality of education and training in both residency and continuing education programs in psychiatry - a specialty in transition. CONCLUSION: The small number of adaptations may indicate that the translation and adaptation of the words in the source language reached linguistic equivalence. The use of translation and back translation proved to be insufficient, and the process had to be followed by bilingual and monolingual psychiatrists and also by the authors. This paper offers the scientific community the first instrument in the Portuguese language aimed at assessing skills and knowledge in the Brazilian psychiatric practice.

Translation; back translation; questionnaires; skills; knowledge; psychiatry; professional practice; psychiatry in transition


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