Translation and Linguistic Validation of Korean Version of the Incontinence Quality of Life(I-QoL) Instrument

Abstract

Purpose Patient-relevant outcomes are inc reasingly used as complementary evidence of effectiveness in the evaluation of treatment options.With the aim of utilization in objectively assessing the symptom's severity and the treatment outcomes of urinary incontinence in Korean population, we translated the Incontinence Quality of Life(I-QoL) instrument into Korean version which subsequently was linguistically validated. 1) Material, Methods and Results Our study lasted for a period of about 8 months, between November 2001 and June 2002.Two native Koreans speakers, who were also fluent in English, translated the original U.S. English I-QoL into written Korean independently.A panel consisting of aforementioned translators and three bilingual authors reviewed the translations to form a single reconciled forward translation of the Korean I-QoL.Another translator, who had never seen the original I-QoL, back-translated this first draft to English.The back-translation was assessed for equivalence to the original by the Health Research Associates, Inc. (HRA).Discrepancies between the original U.S.-