Translation and Psychometric Validation of Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire: The Urdu Version for Facilitating Multidisciplinary Research in Pakistan.

PURPOSE: We aimed to examine and establish the psychometric properties of the Urdu version of the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ) in patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

METHODS

A standard forward-backwards translation procedure was adopted. The Urdu (lingua franca of Pakistan) version of BIPQ was approved by an independent expert panel and committee review. The intraclass correlation (ICC) established the consistency of the retained items in the questionnaire. The test-retest reliability for the pilot and field study was identified by using Cronbach's coefficient. An Exploratory Factor Analysis, conducted using principal axis factoring extraction and oblique rotation with Kaiser normalization, was employed to validate the BIPQ in Urdu. The open-ended section of the BIPQ was discussed for reliability and validity through the Delphi method.

RESULTS

The 8-item translated version (later termed the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire in Urdu, or BIPQ-U) exhibited an acceptable Cronbach's alpha value of 0.814 (test) and 0.800 (re-test). The ICC for all eight items exhibited exceptional coefficient values of > 0.80. Internal consistency during the field study was also acceptable (α = 0.815). The appropriateness of psychometric assessment was confirmed through the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (0.855) and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity (p<0.05). A statistically significant difference between females and males (p = 0.025) confirmed the discriminative validity through Mann-Whitney U-test. Based on initial eigenvalues > 1, four factors were extracted, accounting for a total variance of 75.96%. With acceptable commonalities of >0.30, all eight items of BIPQ-U were retained. Lastly, members of the Delphi group reached a mutual consensus on adding question number 9 to the validated BIPQ-U.

CONCLUSION

The BIPQ-U is a reliable tool for assessing illness perception among Urdu-speaking patients. It can help healthcare providers better understand patient beliefs and improve care.