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Welsh language health measures

Health measures are being used increasingly in clinical and research settings to monitor the health status of patients and assess the impact of service provision and interventions. But individual interpretations of health vary depending on a person’s age, experience and cultural background. All these factors need to be considered when developing health instruments so that they are fit for purpose and sensitive to patients’ needs. This approach is particularly important in health research where the accuracy and reliability of findings is paramount; and study results are often derived from a wide and diverse patient population.

Communicating in a way that responds to the specific language and cultural needs of patients and service users helps explore their personal dimensions of health and provides a more accurate rendering of their health status. In other words, sharing the same language offers a way of establishing common ground for communication and understanding that helps capture the reality of the patient’s experience. Thus, in the bilingual context of Wales, it is imperative that health measures are offered in Welsh as well as English, according to individual need or preference.

Despite increasing efforts to enhance bilingual healthcare services in Wales, there are limited numbers of health measures available in Welsh. This means that the health status of some Welsh speakers may be mis-interpreted; and this can jeopardise their care management and challenge the rigour of research conducted in a bilingual context.

Video: Establishing Welsh language versions of health measures

Video: Gwerfyl Roberts presenting on the topic of the Cognitive Assessment Toolkit in the Cyngor Cofal Cymru tent, Eisteddfod Meifod, August, 2015

MI-CYM website

LLAIS has an established interactive web-site MI-CYM that offers information about health measures available in Welsh, their access details and licensing arrangements. It also allows those involved in the translation of health measures to share information about their progress so that it can develop a central hub of comprehensive information.

: MI-CYM on Twitter

MI-CYM includes details of the following measures:

  • Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination-III (ACE-III
  • Approaches to dementia questionnaire (ADQ-Gen)
  • Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II)
  • Beliefs about Medicine Questionnaire (BMQ)
  • CADI
  • CAMI
  • CASI
  • Cognitive Assessment Toolkit (CATS Toolkit)
  • Decision Regret Scale
  • Dementia Quality of Life (DEMQoL) (Version 4)
  • EORTC QLQ C-30 (Version 3)
  • EORTC QLQ PR25
  • EQ-5D-3L
  • EQ-5D-5L
  • General Practitioner Assessment of Cognition (GPCOG)
  • Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS)
  • ICECAP-A (measure of capability in the adult population)
  • ICECAP-O (measure of capability for older people)
  • K6+
  • Mini Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination (M-ACE-III)
  • Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA)
  • Morinsky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS)
  • Nottingham Extended Activities of Daily Living scale (NEADL)
  • Older People’s Quality of Life (OPQoL-35)
  • Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)
  • Patient Support Strategies
  • Rivermead Mobility Index (RMI)
  • Satisfaction with Information about Medicines Scale (SIMS)
  • SF-12 v2 acute
  • SF-12 v2 standard
  • SF-36 v2 acute
  • SF-36 v2 standard
  • Social Difficulties Inventory (SDI-21)
  • The Barthel Activity of Daily Living Index (BI)
  • The Carer Experience Scale (CES)
  • The Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC-26)
  • The Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS)
  • Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Health Wellbeing Scale (WEMWS)

  • CIT-6 Welsh

  • PSCS – 8

  • PSCS – 8 16

Feedback on Welsh language health measures

I am particularly delighted that the questionnaires have been translated into Welsh.

(Prof Rob Horne, author of BMQ and SIMS)

Thank you very much for your note and update on your very productive translation of the MMAS-4 into the final Welsh measure. I appreciate your perseverance and comprehensive translation approach, and quality assurance procedures used to produce a valid instrument. I am pleased to have you register this on your website and please keep me informed of the contact details for access to your website and the translated MMAS-4.

Prof Donald Morisky, author of Medication Adherence Scale

Many thanks for all your hard work on this project – it’s been a pleasure to collaborate with you.

Michael Herdman, co-author of EQ-5D-5L

Falch i weld bod adnoddau Cymareg ar gael (Pleased to hear that there are Welsh resources available) (PHQ-9)

Community Mental Health Therapist, Cwm Tawe

Thank you so much for the copy of the Welsh DEMQoL, very happy to give permission for you to make this available on the website you suggest, you could include a link to our DEMQoL site for further information.

Professor Sube Banerjee, Author of DEMQoL

Thank you for all your work... it’s all been really helpful and a really positive learning experience.

Dr Sara Hammond-Rowley (BCUHB – Child Psychology Services)

If you are a researcher or a healthcare professional and want a health measure linguistically validated into Welsh, please get in touch with us: llais@bangor.ac.uk