The first work stream is translating the ASCOT service user and carer ‘instruments’ (the questionnaires and interview schedules) into Finnish and German. The translated documents then need to be rigorously tested, to ensure that the questions mean the same thing to people in Finland and Austria as they do in England, and to ensure that the instruments are measuring care-related quality of life.
We have now completed the first stage of this workpackage. The ASCOT service user and carer instruments are now available in Finnish and German. The Austrian and Finnish teams discuss their experiences of this process in presentations, which can be found on our ‘outputs’ page. During the next phase of the study, which is now in progress, we will be developing preference weights for these measures. Subsequently, we will test the measures to make sure that they are valid instruments for measuring care-related quality of life. Once these phases of the study are complete, we will make these instruments freely-available via the ASCOT website. In the meantime if you are interested in finding out more about these measures for studies you are conducting or planning, please contact Birgit Trukeschitz regarding the German (Austrian) measure and Ismo Linnosmaa regarding the Finnish measure.
