In anesthesia and pain medicine, do we need Arabic version of the English language questionnaires?

Recently in anesthesia and pain medicine, there is a growing interest in translating and validating English questionnaires into Arabic language. The reason is to make those questionnaires available and readable to Arabic-speaking patients and utilizing them for assessment of the quality of recovery (QoR) and pain relief postoperatively. In this supplement, the authors translated and validated many quality scores in well-designed studies with reliable outcome. The recovery scores are of paramount importance to the anesthesiologists. Currently, there are three recovery scores. The 9, 40, and 15 items QoR scores. In a study by Myles et al., it was concluded that any of these scales are appropriate and able to quantify the changes in the recovery pattern postoperatively.[1] In this supplement, Terkawi et al. provided the Arabic translation of the English version of the 40-items QoR score which proved reliable in assessing the quality of patient recovery postoperatively. In addition, the same authors have validated the Arabic version of the hospital anxiety and depression (HADS) scale. The Arabic version of HADS was validated before in many Arabic countries, but the authors in this supplement took a further step forward in validating it among surgical patients. I believe a score such as postoperative nausea and vomiting warrants Arabic translation and validation for our surgical patients.[2] A new score, namely, Efficacy Safety Score was recently introduced and validated by Skraastad et al. and proved to adequately reflect the patient's postoperative status with high sensitivity. I think that score also need to be translated in Arabic and validation to be used for our surgical patients.[3] In the field of pain medicine, many scores have been translated into different languages and validated with high sensitivity. The Brazilian version of short-form McGill pain questionnaire (SF-MPQ) proved to be a useful instrument to evaluate the different pain qualities.[4] In this issue, the authors translated the SF-MPQ into Arabic language and was reliable and valid for use among Arabic-speaking patients. The Douleur Neuropathique 4 (DN4) questionnaire was translated to Portuguese with good validity and reliability.[5] The same results also obtained when translating the same questionnaire to Arabic language. In this issue, Terkawi et al. developed and validated the Arabic version of DN4 with high reliability.

The aim of development and validation of Arabic version of medical questionnaires is to allow the inclusion of a useful arm in the clinical setting for accurate diagnosis and proper evaluation of the recovery among surgical patients. We believe more scores need to be developed in Arabic languages for better assessment of the quality among our surgical patients. Another dimension of Arabic translation of the medical questionnaires is its importance to the researchers in the field of anesthesia and pain medicine. We commend the authors in this issue for the good work and the fruitful results.