Cross-cultural validation of the self-assessment of competence in communication - SACCom - to Italian.

PURPOSE: To carry out the cross-cultural validation of the Self-Assessment of Competence in Communication - SACCom to Italian.

METHODS

The cross-cultural validation procedure followed the recommendations and guidelines of the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) and consisted of five stages: 1) Translation of the SACCom from Brazilian Portuguese (BP) into Italian by three bilingual speech-language-hearing pathologists; 2) Preparation of a consensus version; 3) Back-translation from Italian into BP by a fourth bilingual speech-language-hearing pathologist; 4) Comparison of the back-translation with the original instrument and preparation of the final version in Italian called Test di Autovalutazione della Competenza nella Comunicazione (TACCom-IT); and, 5) Application of the TACCom-IT pre-test to 101 native Italians whose voice and communication are essential to their profession. At this stage, the option "not applicable" was added to the answer key.

RESULTS

In the translation, there were different lexical choices regarding the title, instructions, and seven items. In the back-translation, there were conceptual disagreements in the title and instructions, and lexical disagreements in five items. The expert committee made changes to the title, instructions, and three items. In the pre-test phase, a significantly higher proportion of participants responded with options from the instrument's usual answer key for all items.

CONCLUSION

The Italian adapted version of SACCom, entitled Test di Autovalutazione della Competenza nella Comunicazione (TACCom-IT), shows satisfactory cultural and linguistic equivalence in relation to the original instrument and is considered cross-culturally valid.