Kultursensitive Übersetzung des Instruments „Confidence Of Midwifery students on selected midwifery Competencies at completion of Education“ (COMICE) zur Selbsteinschätzung von Kompetenzen und Selbstvertrauen bei Hebammenstudierenden in Deutschland

Background

Professional self-confidence is a key competency for midwives, as it influences practical skills. The COMICE study (Confidence Of Midwifery students on selected midwifery Competencies at completion of Education) uses a questionnaire to examine the self-confidence of over 2,000 midwifery students in Sweden, India and seven African countries, identifying challenges and factors that influence self-confidence.

Objective

For the study ’The impact of augmented reality-based training on the professional self-confidence of midwifery students in emergency situations’, the widely used but unvalidated questionnaire was translated into German and culturally adapted.

Methods

The translation of the COMICE questionnaire from English into German followed the ‘Guidelines for the process of cross-cultural adaptation of self-report measures’ by Beaton et al. (2000). The six translation stages were partially modified. Independent forward and backward translations were conducted, followed by two pre-tests. The first pre-test assessed comprehensibility and relevance, while the second, using the think-aloud method, evaluated linguistic clarity.

Results

The first pre-test (n = 31) indicated an average completion time of 30 minutes and provided 13 content-related comments, primarily concerning questionnaire length and country-specific topics. Based on these findings, redundant items were excluded, and the questionnaire was reduced to three core questions. The second pre-test (n = 3) did not reveal any remaining comprehension difficulties. A validation was not performed.

Conclusions

The multi-stage translation and adaptation process presented challenges in terms of technical terminology and cultural differences. Translation quality was ensured by involving both experts and native speakers. The cross-cultural adaptation ensured comprehensibility for midwifery students in Germany and provided the basis for international comparisons.