Translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and validation of the Rastreamento de Alteracoes Vocais em Idosos-RAVI (Screening for voice disorders in older adults) tool into Sri Lankan Tamil

Abstract

Objective: The objectives of the study was to translate, cross-culturally adapt and validate the Rastreamento de Alteracoes Vocais em Idosos-RAVI (Screening for voice disorders in older adults) instrument from English into Sri Lankan Tamil.Methods: The study was carried out as a tool adaptation and validation study. The study was conducted in three phases. Phase one involved the translation and cross-cultural adaptation of Rastreamento de Alteracoes Vocais em Idosos-RAVI (Screening for voice disorders in older adults), conducted under four phases. Stage 1 was forward translation; stage 2 was synthesis (T1 and T2) of the forward translated tools, stage 3 was backward translation of the synthesized version (T12) of the questionnaire totally blind to the original version. Stage 4 was the review of the translated questionnaires by the expert committee. The phase two involved a Delphi study to achieve content validity of the translated instrument, and a psychometric evaluation of the instrument. The psychometric evaluation was not able to be carried out due to time restrictions. Results: The RAVI tool was successfully translated and cross-culturally adapted to Sri Lankan Tamil. I-CVI (Item-level content validity index) values for all the items were acceptable (>_0.83) for all domains except for one item each in culturally appropriateness and sufficiency domains. S-CVI/Ave (scale-level content validity index based on the average method) values for all domains were satisfactory and above 0.90. Five older adults aged 60 years and above participated in the pre-test, and they understood all the items mentioned in the RAVI tool without any issues.Conclusion: The Rastreamento de Alteracoes Vocais em Idosos-RAVI (Screening for voice disorders in older adults) was successfully translated, cross-culturally adapted and content validated into Sri Lankan Tamil language. Overall, Sri Lankan Tamil translation of the RAVI instrument showed a satisfactory content validity.