Abstract
Introduction The gathering of health and quality-of-life issues that matter most to patients over
so-called patient-reported outcomes (PROs) is a key aspect of patient-centered
healthcare. In obstetrics, this approach has the potential to expand the current
understanding of what quality entails by including patient perspectives. The International
Consortium for
Health Outcome Measures (ICHOM), founded in 2012, is a global organization which
aims to standardise the collection of PROs and make the results comparable worldwide.
A PRO Set for
obstetrics, “Pregnancy and Childbirth”, was published in 2018. The aim of our
work was to translate the instruments of this set that are not yet available in German
into German.
Methods The instruments were translated from English into German using the Functional Assessment
of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT) translation method. The translated instruments
consisted of the Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale – Short Form (BSES-SF), the
Mother-to-Infant Bonding Scale (MIBS), and the Birth Satisfaction Scale – Revised
(BSS-R) as well as a number
of individual questions (items).
Results The final version of the German translations were found to be easily comprehensible
by the target group. During the cognitive debriefing, it became clear that pregnant
women
and women who had just given birth often used a number of medically incorrect
terms to refer to their symptoms or complaints. In the translations great care was
taken to ensure that the
wording was as close as possible to the general usage of the language while at
the same time the terminology was medically correct. To achieve a precise but comprehensible
translation, the
response structure of the BSES-SF also had to be adapted.
Conclusions The instruments of the ICHOM Standard Set “Pregnancy and Childbirth”, which were
not previously available in German, were successfully translated into German. This
meant
dealing with a few challenges such as adapting questions or response structures.
The cultural and linguistic comprehensibility of the German translations were confirmed
during the subsequent
cognitive debriefing. The translations offer the possibility of implementing
the complete ICHOM Set for Pregnancy and Childbirth. This would provide an opportunity
to expand the existing
understanding of quality by including the subjective experience of women during
and after childbirth and, in future, to compare outcomes with those of other hospitals
across the world.
Key words
subjective perception of health - patient-reported outcomes - breastfeeding - early
bonding - birth experience
