Development of a Sinhalese Version of Dementia Knowledge Assessment Scale (Si-DKAS)

Abstract

Insufficient knowledge among nurses limits their ability to provide optimal dementia care. Therefore, the assessment of knowledge among nurses regarding dementia is essential. However, a culturally adapted dementia knowledge assessment scale (DKAS) is unavailable in Sri Lanka. This paper reports the findings of stage one of a study aimed to develop a Sinhalese version of DKAS (Si-DKAS) from its English version with nursing students. The first stage involved translation and cross-cultural adaptation, following World Health Organisation guidelines for cross-cultural validation. Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethical Review Committee of the Medical Research Institute, Borella, Sri Lanka. The original developers permitted the validation of the scale with 25 items. Forward translation of the English version into Sinhalese was performed by a nurse, an independent translator who is an expert in both languages. A panel of experts (n=5) analysed the forward translation for poor expressions and inconsistencies compared to the original version. The Sinhalese version was back-translated into English by a bilingual expert whose mother tongue was Sinhalese, fluent in English, and had no prior knowledge of the scale. The research team sought feedback from a panel of experts (n=5) to ensure conceptual, semantic, and idiomatic equivalence. The content validity index (CVI) was computed (n=12). The researchers discussed with the original developers to ensure that the concepts depicted in the Sinhalese and English versions were the same. Next, the Si-DKAS was pre-tested with 11 nursing students from the School of Nursing, Kadana, and face validity was established. A language expert in Sinhalese evaluated the scale for comprehensibility. The conceptual translation was assured rather than the literal translation. The Si-DKAS had an excellent conceptual and semantic equivalence with the English version. Item-CVI, Scale-CVI/Average, and Scale-CVI/Universal were 0.8 to 1, 0.9, and 0.36, respectively, showing acceptable content validity. The pre-final version of the Si-DKAS was developed that can be used in the next stage of this study: the establishment of the psychometric properties of the Si-DKAS.