Translation Procedures for Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) to Brazil

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to translate the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) to Brazilian Portuguese and evaluate its semantic, conceptual, idiomatic, and cultural equivalence, content-related validity, and level of verbal comprehension as the initial stage of its cross-cultural adaptation. Six steps were conducted: translation, synthesis of the translated versions, back-translation, synthesis of the back-translated versions, pilot study to evaluate the instrument and verbal comprehension by the target population, and analysis of content validity by judges. Differences between the original and translated versions were attributable to language and culture because they are quite similar in meaning. Content validity was excellent, with 94.5% agreement among experts for the entire scale. The items were easily understood by the target population. The final Brazilian version of the DEBQ was approved by the original author, and its psychometric properties are ready to be tested.

Keywords

• cross-cultural adaptation
• translation
• validation studies
• eating behavior