Abdullah Sulieman Terkawi

The task of developing a new questionnaire or translating an existing questionnaire into a different language might be overwhelming. The greatest challenge perhaps is to come up with a questionnaire that is psychometrically sound, and is efficient and effective for use in research and clinical settings. This article provides guidelines for the development and translation of questionnaires for application in medical fields, with a special emphasis on perioperative and pain medicine. We provide a framework to guide researchers through the various stages of questionnaire development and translation. To ensure that the questionnaires are psychometrically sound, we present a number of statistical methods to assess the reliability and validity of the questionnaires.

INTRODUCTION: The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) is widely used to predict and diagnose hospital anxiety and depression. It has been translated and validated in many languages, but the existing Arabic version was not validated in hospitalized patients. The aim was to translate, culturally adapt, and validate the HADS Questionnaire into Arabic language for in-patient use, especially for surgical wards. METHODS: A systematic translation process was used to translate the original English HADS into Arabic. After the pilot study, we validated our version in surgical patients at two tertiary care centers. We tested the reliability of our version using internal consistency. We examined the validity by assessing construct validity, concurrent validity (by testing the associations between HADS, Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale [GAD-7], and Major Depression Inventory [MDI]), and face validity. The questionnaire was administered before and after surgery to examine responsiveness. RESULTS: A total of 110 patients (22 men, 88 women) were included in the study. Cronbach's αs for the HADS anxiety subscale were 0.83 (95% confidence interval: 0.79- 0.88) and for the HADS depression subscale were 0.77 (0.7-0.83). Nearly 36% of the patients reported symptoms indicative of borderline or case anxiety before surgery, which decreased to 25% 1 week after surgery. HADS anxiety score was strongly correlated with GAD-7, and HADS depression score was strongly associated with MDI. Patients with higher American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status and those who remained hospitalized for more than 5 days were more likely to report depression symptoms. Most patients found the HADS questions to be clear and easy to understand, and thought the questionnaire items covered all their problem areas regarding their hospital anxiety and depression. CONCLUSIONS: Our Arabic version of HADS is a reliable and valid tool to assess the mood states in hospitalized patients.

BACKGROUND: Optimal analgesia for total knee arthroplasty remains challenging. Many modalities have been used, including peripheral nerve block, periarticular infiltration, and epidural analgesia. However, the relative efficacy of various modalities remains unknown. The authors aimed to quantify and rank order the efficacy of available analgesic modalities for various clinically important outcomes. METHODS: The authors searched multiple databases, each from inception until July 15, 2016. The authors used random-effects network meta-analysis. For measurements repeated over time, such as pain, the authors considered all time points to enhance reliability of the overall effect estimate. Outcomes considered included pain scores, opioid consumption, rehabilitation profile, quality of recovery, and complications. The authors defined the optimal modality as the one that best balanced pain scores, opioid consumption, and range of motion in the initial 72 postoperative hours. RESULTS: The authors identified 170 trials (12,530 patients) assessing 17 treatment modalities. Overall inconsistency and heterogeneity were acceptable. Based on the surface under the cumulative ranking curve, the best five for pain at rest were femoral/obturator, femoral/sciatic/obturator, lumbar plexus/sciatic, femoral/sciatic, and fascia iliaca compartment blocks. For reducing opioid consumption, the best five were femoral/sciatic/obturator, femoral/obturator, lumbar plexus/sciatic, lumbar plexus, and femoral/sciatic blocks. The best modality for range of motion was femoral/sciatic blocks. Femoral/sciatic and femoral/obturator blocks best met our criteria for optimal performance. Considering only high-quality studies, femoral/sciatic seemed best. CONCLUSIONS: Blocking multiple nerves was preferable to blocking any single nerve, periarticular infiltration, or epidural analgesia. The combination of femoral and sciatic nerve block appears to be the overall best approach. Rehabilitation parameters remain markedly understudied.

The Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) is witnessing an increase in chronic disorders, including mental illness. With ongoing unrest, this is expected to rise. This is the first study to quantify the burden of mental disorders in the EMR. We used data from the Global Burden of Disease study (GBD) 2013. DALYs (disability-adjusted life years) allow assessment of both premature mortality (years of life lost-YLLs) and nonfatal outcomes (years lived with disability-YLDs). DALYs are computed by adding YLLs and YLDs for each age-sex-country group. In 2013, mental disorders contributed to 5.6% of the total disease burden in the EMR (1894 DALYS/100,000 population): 2519 DALYS/100,000 (2590/100,000 males, 2426/100,000 females) in high-income countries, 1884 DALYS/100,000 (1618/100,000 males, 2157/100,000 females) in middle-income countries, 1607 DALYS/100,000 (1500/100,000 males, 1717/100,000 females) in low-income countries. Females had a greater proportion of burden due to mental disorders than did males of equivalent ages, except for those under 15 years of age. The highest proportion of DALYs occurred in the 25-49 age group, with a peak in the 35-39 years age group (5344 DALYs/100,000). The burden of mental disorders in EMR increased from 1726 DALYs/100,000 in 1990 to 1912 DALYs/100,000 in 2013 (10.8% increase). Within the mental disorders group in EMR, depressive disorders accounted for most DALYs, followed by anxiety disorders. Among EMR countries, Palestine had the largest burden of mental disorders. Nearly all EMR countries had a higher mental disorder burden compared to the global level. Our findings call for EMR ministries of health to increase provision of mental health services and to address the stigma of mental illness. Moreover, our results showing the accelerating burden of mental health are alarming as the region is seeing an increased level of instability. Indeed, mental health problems, if not properly addressed, will lead to an increased burden of diseases in the region.