Translating and validating the Finnish version of the Manchester clinical supervision scale
Sammanfattning
Evaluation research provides new perspectives for clinical supervision (CS), and international collaboration offers advantages to develop valid instruments for this purpose. Besides translation, an instrument developed and tested in another culture requires systematic validation. The study focuses on the translation process of the Manchester Clinical Supervision Scale for testing in Finland carried out collaboratively between the Universities of Tampere and Manchester. The instrument is a 45-item questionnaire with a Likert-type (1-5) scale comprising seven sub-scales: trust and rapport, supervisor advice and support, improved care and skills, importance and value of CS, finding time, personal issues and reflection and total score. At first, a licensed translator translated the instrument into Finnish. A native British language teacher at the University language centre performed the blind back-translation into English. The translations were compared by both collaborative parties and by three experienced Finnish supervisors. A pilot sample (n = 182) was collected to test the translated instrument. In this sample Cronbach's alpha value for the total score was 0.9227 and in the sub-scales 0.6393-0.8838. The mean values in the sub-scales were 14.2-29.3, SDs 3.02-3.88 and modes 14.0-30.0. The British test sample had almost similar values. Translating an instrument into another language not only requires expertise in language, but also in practice. The cultural validation is the most important phase in the process that can be accomplished with pilot testing and statistical methods. However, further expert evaluation is required for the validity of the instrument.
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons.