Translation of scales in cross-cultural research: issues and techniques

AIMS: This paper is a report of a study designed to: (i) describe issues and techniques of translation of standard measures for use in international research; (ii) identify a user-friendly and valid translation method when researchers have limited resources during translation procedure; and (iii) discuss translation issues using data from a pilot study as an example. BACKGROUND: The process of translation is an important part of cross-cultural studies. Cross-cultural researchers are often confronted by the need to translate scales from one language to another and to do this with limited resources. METHOD: The lessons learned from our experience in a pilot study are presented to underline the importance of using appropriate translation procedures. The issues of the back-translation method are discussed to identify strategies to ensure success when translating measures. FINDINGS: A combined technique is an appropriate method to maintain the content equivalences between the original and translated instruments in international research. There are several possible combinations of translation techniques. However, there is no gold standard of translation techniques because the research environment (e.g. accessibility and availability of bilingual people) and the research questions are different. CONCLUSIONS: It is important to use appropriate translation procedures and to employ a combined translation technique based on the research environment and questions.     

缺血性脑卒中患者发病节气与证型的相关性研究

目的 探究缺血性脑卒中发病节气与证型的相关性。方法 选取2021年天津中医药大学第一附属医院住院病历系统中4 838例缺血性脑卒中患者,使用频数分布统计法对其性别、年龄、发病节气、中医证型等信息进行分析,计算患者的发病日期对应的发病节气,然后分析缺血性脑卒中的发病节气与中医证型的相关性;使用圆形分布统计法探究发病节气、中医证型的高峰点。结果 4 838例患者中,男性3 233例（66.8%）,女性1 605例（33.2%）;60~69岁有1 814例（37.5%）,为发病人数最多的年龄段;阴虚动风证2 268例（46.9%）,风痰阻络证1 231例（25.4%）,两者为最常见的证型;清明为发病率最高的节气,总体发病节气无绝对高峰期,惊蛰为阴虚动风证发病高峰,小满为风痰阻络证发病高峰。结论 缺血性脑卒中患者男性多于女性,60~69岁年龄段发病人数最多,整体发病不存在绝对高峰节气,阴虚动风、风痰阻络两种证型的发病存在高峰期,阴虚动风证的发病高峰节气是惊蛰,风痰阻络证的发病高峰节气为小满,提示二十四节气内均可发病,重点人群要积极且持续的预防。     

Symptômes psychotiques dans l’épisode maniaque. Un regard de psychiatre libéral

Private practice requires particular vigilance with regard to signs of mood instability in patients with bipolar disorders, in particular the manic aspect, because of the risk of disruption in care. Between the episodes, psychotic symptoms can be sequels or prodroms and, if so, often stereotyped from one episode to the next. During the manic episode, mood-congruent symptoms (grandiosity, possessing superpowers, having a special relationship with God or with celebrities) are most common, but mood-incongruent symptoms (delusions of persecution, auditory hallucinations, first-rank Schneiderian symptoms) are not uncommon. In the absence of delusions or hallucinations, the clinician must be alert to a decline in insight, or when the patient shows symptoms of formal thought disturbances. For certain classical authors, mania was, by itself, a psychotic experience. The relationship between the severity of mania and the existence of psychotic symptoms is strong, but not exclusive. Some patients that have not completely stopped their treatment can have moderate symptoms of mania, albeit with some psychotic symptoms. Congruent and non-congruent psychotic symptoms may persist beyond the manic episode, raising the question of schizoaffective (SA) disorder when elements of a diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia are met. SA is a disputed diagnostic category, whose stability over time is unsatisfactory. The management of psychotic symptoms with mania is difficult in private practice: a clinical case of a female bipolar patient with erotomania before and during manic episodes illustrates the difficulties of management when the patient's insight fluctuates. The side-effects of treatments, a hypomanic switch, induced by an antidepressant despite two mood stabilizers (lithium, valproate), followed by a period of mood instability and a lack of medical coordination had contributed to an interruption in care. Statistical multivariate analyses and the grouping of symptoms and patients together with factor and network analyses suggest a partial independence of psychotic symptoms from other manic symptoms and, in cluster analyses, the likelihood of a subgroup of manic patients with psychotic symptoms.     

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Radiomics Analyses for Prediction of High-Grade Histology and Necrosis in Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma: Preliminary Experience

IntroductionPercutaneous renal mass biopsy results can accurately diagnose clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC); however, their reliability to determine nuclear grade in larger, heterogeneous tumors is limited. We assessed the ability of radiomics analyses of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to predict high-grade (HG) histology in ccRCC.Patients and MethodsSeventy patients with a renal mass underwent 3 T MRI before surgery between August 2012 and August 2017. Tumor length, first-order statistics, and Haralick texture features were calculated on T2-weighted and dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI after manual tumor segmentation. After a variable clustering algorithm was applied, tumor length, washout, and all cluster features were evaluated univariably by receiver operating characteristic curves. Three logistic regression models were constructed to assess the predictability of HG ccRCC and then cross-validated.ResultsAt univariate analysis, area under the curve values of length, and DCE texture cluster 1 and cluster 3 for diagnosis of HG ccRCC were 0.7 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.58-0.82, false discovery rate P = .008), 0.72 (95% CI, 0.59-0.84, false discovery rate P = .004), and 0.75 (95% CI, 0.63-0.87, false discovery rate P = .0009), respectively. At multivariable analysis, area under the curve for model 1 (tumor length only), model 2 (length + DCE clusters 3 and 4), and model 3 (DCE cluster 1 and 3) for diagnosis of HG ccRCC were 0.67 (95% CI, 0.54-0.79), 0.82 (95% CI, 0.71-0.92), and 0.81 (95% CI, 0.70-0.91), respectively.ConclusionRadiomics analysis of MRI images was superior to tumor size for the prediction of HG histology in ccRCC in our cohort.     

Validity and reliability of the Nursing Minimum Data Set for the Netherlands (NMDSN)

The Nursing Minimum Data Set for the Netherlands (NMDSN) describes nursing care based on nursing phenomena, interventions and outcomes. The validity and reliability of its data collection has not been tested yet. PURPOSE: To report about the discriminative validity and the interrater reliability of the NMDSN. DESIGN: Data were collected in an intensive care ward, in a nursing home and in a residential home. The unit of measurement and analysis is the 'patient day'. The analysis for validity consisted of ridits calculations, and their graphical representations. Interrater reliability was measured by percentage agreement and Cohen's kappa. RESULTS: Graphs illustrate the differences on most nursing phenomena and interventions as expected beforehand. The percentage agreements for the residential home vary from 60.4 to 100%, and the kappa statistics from -0.09 to 0.85, indicating a poor to almost perfect interrater reliability. CONCLUSION: Intensive care patients and patients in the nursing home have more problems and need more nursing interventions compared with general hospital patients, while the patients in the residential home have lesser of both. This illustrates the discriminative validity of the NMDSN. The kappa values for various NMDSN variables are sufficient. A similar test in the general hospital is recommended.