mHealth App Usability Questionnaire for Stand-Alone mHealth Apps Used by Health Care Providers: Canadian French Translation, Cross-Cultural Adaptation, and Validation (Part 1)

Abstract

BackgroundAn increasing number of health care professionals are using mobile apps. The mHealth App Usability Questionnaire (MAUQ) was designed to evaluate the usability of mobile health apps by patients and providers. However, this questionnaire is not available in French. ObjectiveThis study aims to translate (from English to Canadian French), cross-culturally adapt, and initiate the validation of the original version of MAUQ for stand-alone mobile health apps used by French-speaking health care providers. MethodsA cross-cultural research study using a well-established method was conducted to translate MAUQ to Canadian French by certified translators and subsequently review it with a translation committee. It was then back translated to English. The back translations were compared with the original by the members of the committee to reach consensus regarding the prefinal version. A pilot test of the prefinal version was conducted with a sample of 49 potential users and 10 experts for content validation. ResultsThe statements are considered clear, with interrater agreement of 99.14% among potential users and 90% among experts. Of 21 statements, 5 (24%) did not exceed the 80% interrater agreement of the experts regarding clarity. Following the revisions, interrater agreement exceeded 80%. The content validity index of the items varied from 0.90 to 1, and the overall content validity index was 0.981. Individual Fleiss multirater κ of each item was between 0.89 and 1, showing excellent agreement and increasing confidence in the questionnaire’s content validity. ConclusionsThis process of translation and cultural adaptation produced a new version of MAUQ that was validated for later use among the Canadian French–speaking population. An upcoming separate study will investigate the psychometric properties of the adapted questionnaire.