Table 4 Most problematic SCQ items classified by type of difficulty (Diff.) - Cultural (C), Idiomatic/Pragmatics (I), Semantic (S) and Syntactic (Sy)
Item | Diff. | Lang.* (country) | LV§ Step | Description | Solution | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
F/B | IS | |||||
15. Over the past four weeks, how often did you feel that you didn’t have enough money to care for him/her, in addition to the rest of your expenses? | C | ENG (Canada) | ✓ | All respondents were somewhat confused by this item, since in Canada patients with schizophrenia automatically qualify for government assistance and their medications are covered by social insurance. | Item reworded as follows: “Over the past four weeks, how often did you feel that, in addition to the rest of your expenses, you needed more money to care for him/her?” | |
31. Over the past four weeks, how often did you experience emotional highs and lows (“an emotional rollercoaster”) because of his/her schizophrenia? | I | ENG (Canada), FRE (France), FIN, ITA, SPA, SWE | ✓ | ✓ | “High and lows” was translated either by a corresponding idiomatic expression or by a non idiomatic equivalent. | ENG, FRE (France): “ups and down”, FIN, ITA, SPA: “mood swings”, SWE: “valleys and tops” |
FRE (Canada, France), GER, ITA, SPA | ✓ | ✓ | “Emotional rollercoaster” was perceived as too idiomatic by translators and respondents of romance languages. | FRE (Canada), ITA, SPA: deleted, FRE (France): “up and down morale”, GER: “rollercoaster feelings” | ||
1. Over the past four weeks, how often did you feel that he/she asked for more help than needed? | S | ITA, SPA | ✓ | Meaning of “he/she” was found unclear by translators. | “He/she” translated by “ill person” (Italian) [changed made for all items including he/she], “the person you take care of” (Spanish) | |
3. Over the past four weeks, how difficult was it for you to care for him/her and meet your other responsibilities? | S | ITA | ✓ | Meaning of “you” was considered too ambiguous by respondents. | “You” was removed, “him/her” replaced by “ill person”. Change made for all items with him/her. | |
4. Over the past four weeks, how embarrassed did you feel about his/her behavior? | S | DUT | ✓ | “Embarrassed” was translated with a word meaning both “ashamed” and “embarrassed”. The interviews suggested that the respondents gave it a meaning that had a strong connotation. | Replaced by a more direct equivalent of “embarrassed” | |
GER | ✓ | Two respondents were disturbed by the translation of embarrassed (“ashamed”). | No change | |||
5. Over the past four weeks, how frustrated did you feel about his/her behavior? | S | DUT | ✓ | The literal translation of frustrated was not understood by some respondents. | Translated by an equivalent of “dissatisfied” | |
FRE (France) | ✓ | ✓ | The literal translation of frustrated was not possible. It was translated by an equivalent of “irritated”. The interviews suggested that the respondents gave it a meaning that had a strong connotation. | “Irritated” replaced by an equivalent of “annoyed” | ||
11. Over the past four weeks, how often did you feel that you didn’t have as much privacy as you would have liked because of him/her? | S | DUT | ✓ | Respondents argued that the Dutch word did not convey the meaning of “time for oneself” and suggested another expression. | “Private life” | |
FRE (France) | ✓ | The word “privacy” in French could also mean “intimacy”. | No change | |||
14. Over the past four weeks, how often did you feel that he/she was overly dependent on you to help with daily activities? | S | DUT | ✓ | The meaning of “overly” was not clear for some respondents. | “Overly” replaced by an equivalent of “too” | |
20. Over the past four weeks, how often did you feel you should be doing more for him/her? | S | FRE (Canada) | ✓ | Item well understood. However the respondents found that its meaning was too close to the meaning of item 21. | “Doing more” was underlined in the translation | |
27. Over the past four weeks, how often did you worry that he/she might have an episode? | S | FRE (Canada) | ✓ | “Episode” was found unclear by translators. | Addition of “psychotic” to clarify meaning | |
ENG (Canada), ITA, GER, SPA, SWE | ✓ | “Episode” was either perceived unclear or too technical by respondents. | ENG: “psychotic break”, “GER: “schizophrenic episode”, ITA SPA: “crisis”, SWE: “relapse” | |||
7. Over the past four weeks, how often did you feel that his/her schizophrenia affected your relationship with other family members or friends in a negative way? | S | ENG (Canada, UK), FRE (Canada) | ✓ | Items well understood. However some respondents were strongly opposed to the use of “schizophrenia” because of the stigma attached to it. | No change [decision of the developer] | |
17. Over the past four weeks, how often did you feel you weren’t in control of your life because of his/her schizophrenia? | Sy | ITA | ✓ | The use of the courtesy form (3rd person singular) leads to an unwanted ambiguity: “your” is also translated as “his/her”, i.e., “your relationship” may be understood as “his/her relationship”, “his/her schizophrenia” as “your schizophrenia”. | “His/her” was deleted in the Italian version | |
28. Over the past four weeks, how often did you worry that his/her schizophrenia might get worse? | ||||||
31. Over the past four weeks, how often did you experience emotional highs and lows (“an emotional rollercoaster”) because of his/her schizophrenia? | ||||||
8. Over the past four weeks, how afraid were you of what the future holds for him/her? | Sy | DUT | ✓ | The item was well understood but the respondents found its structure unnecessarily too complicated. | “How worried were you about his/her future” | |