Translation, Cultural Adaptation, and Reliability of Nursing Students’ Belongingness Scale--Clinical Placement Experience

Background:Considering the limitation of reports on the translation of research questionnaires, the present study aims to clarify the necessity of correctly conducting the translation process. Therefore, it deals with describing the process and the required stages for the cultural adaptation of research instruments in an operational style. Consequently, it may provide a platform for researchers to pay more attention to this important issue. Methods: Levett-Jones et al.’s (2009) Belongingness Scale--Clinical Placement Experience (BES-CPE) includes 34 items and three subscales of self-esteem, connectedness, and efficacy in 5-point Likert scale. It was translated and studied for cultural adaptation according to Wild et al.’s (2005) model. Following the preparation of the final questionnaire to evaluate reliability, instrument consistency was studied using test-retest method, with a two-week interval, and completing the questionnaire by 25 nursing students. Moreover, internal consistency was evaluated through Cronbach’s alpha. Result: During the processes of translation, back translation, and review, six items were corrected and the observation of cultural equivalences was also considered in the questionnaire. Then, in the process of acquiring cognitive debriefing and review, results of interviewing a number of students indicated that some items are problematic. For instance, the results are ambiguous. Thus, five items of the questionnaire were changed. The reliability of the instrument was obtained as r=0.70 through test-retest replicability method. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.90 for the whole instrument. Moreover, the values of Cronbach’s alpha for the subscales of self-esteem, connectedness, and efficiency were 0.88, 0.75, and 0.84, respectively. Conclusion: Complete record of translating the instrument, especially when it is translated into another language and culture, proves important for optimum use by other researchers. In the present research, this problem was eliminated. The results indicated the high reliability of the instrument. Therefore, the questionnaire can be used for measuring the nursing students’ belongingness in Iranian clinical settings.