Quality of Communication Questionnaire for COPD patients receiving palliative care: translation and cross-cultural adaptation for use in Brazil

Abstract

Objective:To translate the Quality of Communication Questionnaire (QOC) to Portuguese and adapt it for use in Brazil in COPD patients receiving palliative care. Methods:After approval from the first author of the original QOC and the local research ethics committee, the original, 13-item version of the questionnaire was independently translated to Brazilian Portuguese by two Brazilian translators fluent in English. The two translations were analyzed by a bilingual physician and the two Brazilian translators, who reached a consensus and produced another Portuguese version of the QOC. That version was back-translated to English by two translators originally from English-speaking countries and fluent in Portuguese. In order to resolve any discrepancies, an expert panel compared the original version of the QOC with all five versions produced up to that point, the “prefinal” version of the QOC for use in Brazil being thus arrived at. A total of 32 patients admitted to any of three public hospital ICUs in the greater metropolitan area of Florianopolis, in southern Brazil, participated in the pretesting phase of the study, which was aimed at assessing the clarity and cultural acceptability of the prefinal version of the QOC for use in Brazil. Results:Mean patient age was 48.5 ± 18.8 years. Most of the items were well understood and accepted, being rated 8 or higher. One item, regarding death, was considered difficult to understand by the participants in the pretesting phase. After analyzing the back-translated version of the QOC, the first author of the original questionnaire requested that the items “Caring about you as a human being” and “Talking about what death might be like” be changed to “Caring about you as a person” and “Talking about how dying might be”, respectively. The final version of the QOC for use in Brazil was thus arrived at. Conclusions:The QOC was successfully translated to Portuguese and adapted for use in Brazil.

Quality of Communication Questionnaire for Patients Hospitalized in Intensive and Palliative Care: Validity Evidence for Use in Brazil

“…This study has examined the validity evidence of the Brazilian version of the QoC. 43 It showed good internal consistency in the overall scale (α = .80). It was higher in the general communication subscale (α = .87), and lower than acceptable in the end-of-life communication subscale (α = .65), which was .51 among patients in IC, but .71 among patients in PC.…”

“…In order to use the QoC, which includes items related to end-of-life communication, in Brazil, the authors of this study translated and culturally adapted it, generating a Brazilian version. 43 However, validity evidence for this version has not been studied. Engelberg et al 28 highlight the need to continue analyzing the psychometric properties of the QoC and its subscales.…”

Selecting the Best Instrument to Measure Family Perceptions of End-of-Life Communication in Intensive Care Units

“…0.85). 28,35 The validity of the Korean and Brazilian Portuguese QOC versions, however, has not been fully evaluated and consequently they should be used with caution.…”

Patients’ perception of medical communication and their needs during the stay in the intensive care unit

“…With the permission of the authors, the QoC has been translated and adapted for Brazilian patients admitted to the ICU, ( 24 ) who were not necessarily in the end-of-life. Later, for its validation (in progress), the Brazilian version ( 24 ) was applied to inpatients or patients recently discharged from the ICU and to patients who were in the end of their lives.…”

“…With the permission of the authors, the QoC has been translated and adapted for Brazilian patients admitted to the ICU, ( 24 ) who were not necessarily in the end-of-life. Later, for its validation (in progress), the Brazilian version ( 24 ) was applied to inpatients or patients recently discharged from the ICU and to patients who were in the end of their lives. When answering the QoC, patients spontaneously made reflections or comments to justify the score assigned to each item, similar to what was found by Russell in a study in Australia.…”