Page 18 - A Step-By-Step Guide to Questionnaire Validation Research

questionnaire such as The Short Form Health Survey

(SF-36) for measuring the quality of life of patients from

different countries in order to ensure that the findings

obtained from this research study are valid. However,

since different countries are usually using different

languages, the same SF-36 questionnaire must first be

translated into different languages before it is administered

to the respondents from all the different countries

(Fukuhara et., al., 2003).

When making a comparison between different

countries (for example, in a ‘cross-country’ type of study),

it is not recommended for the different studies conducted

in different countries to each use a different set of

questionnaires that is measuring the same latent variable

such as quality of life because it will be difficult to ensure

that there is a fair comparison of the quality of life

measures. If a majority of existing studies have already