Neha Agrawal1, Narinder Dev Gupta1, Amit Kumar Garg2. 1. Department of Periodontics and Community Dentistry, Dr. ZA Dental College, AMU, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India. 2. Department of Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics, KD Dental College, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Sir,It was interesting to read the article by Deshpande et al. regarding the translation and validation of Hindi version of oral health impact profile-14. The availability of multilingual versions of instruments is important for epidemiological research. Here, the author has endeavored to validate the Hindi version of oral health impact profile-14 by comparing the responses of participants for Hindi and English version of the questionnaire.[1]For the development of an instrument of health status to be used in another culture or setting, two steps should be followed: (1) The cross-cultural adaptation comprising of translation in standard language plus adjustment of cultural words and context, possibly involving the complete transformation of some items in order to capture the same concept. (2) The validation of the translated instrument.[2] Therefore, instead of the true translation, the cross-cultural adaptation would have been more appropriate and meaningful.Validity is the ability of a measurement method to measure what it is intended to measure. In order to validly use the instrument, it is important to investigate its psychometric properties. One should consider the content validity, criterion validity, construct validity, reliability, and responsiveness by testing the adapted instrument in a sample of the target population.[234] These points should also have been taken into consideration.