Translating Foreign-Developed Instruments to Guide Nursing Practice in the Czech Republic: Do They Encourage Evidence-Based Nursing?

Abstract

The article focuses on using foreign-developed instruments to conduct nursing research and to guide nursing practice in the Czech Republic (CR). Foreign sources mention a number of challenges associated with instrument translation and recommend a course of action to achieve linguistic and cultural equivalence, and ultimately, to ensure instrument validity. However, Czech authors translating and using foreign instruments often do not provide any information about the translation process they used. This shortcoming does not allow the nursing community to assess if adequate measures were implemented to minimize any possible validity threats associated with the translation process. The article reviews some of the methods that can be used to ensure that research instruments translated from one language to another retain their validity across languages and cultures. Key wordsInstrument validity, linguistic and cultural equivalency, nursing research, research instrument, translation Klíčová slovaValidita nástroje, jazyková a kulturní shoda, ošetřovatelský vý-zkum, výzkumný nástroj, překlad