Patient and client questionnaires are vital tools for hospitals and companies, to determine the effectiveness and quality of care and/or services provided, as well as gathering other vital service information. As such, not only is the quality of the questionnaire of paramount importance, but also the understanding of the patient or client, when devising the questionnaire. When reproduced in different languages, there is, however, the potential for key details, intent and meaning to be lost in translation. To avoid this, United Languages offers cognitive debriefing services, to ensure that all patient and/or client questionnaires are clearly understood in the intended manner.
Cognitive debriefing is the process of testing a questionnaire, amongst a target group in their native language, to determine whether the understanding of the translated questions, match with the intention of the original language. We present the questionnaire to a test audience, have them read and then rephrase the questions, to ascertain understanding. If a question is misunderstood, key information may be missed, resulting negative outcomes for future patients or clients. First testing translated questionnaires, through cognitive debriefing, significantly reduces the incidence of such costly mistakes.
Gathering information from target groups, in order to revise questionnaires for concept equivalence, allows the production of translations, which both match the source material and are culturally comprehensible. With access to an extensive network of hospitals, medical personnel, legal, business and financial expertise, United Languages provides excellent service for all cognitive debriefing needs.
Click to discover our Translation, Interpreting, Editing, Copywriting and Desktop Publishing services.