The explanations of IRICA
Section 1. Title and Abstract
-item 1a: To concise and clear present the research information, the full name of original instrument, target language, research type and the role of article in series studies should be provided in the title. Of those, the research type can be indicated but not limited to words “cross cultural adaptation”, “cross-cultural”, “cultural adaptation”, “translation” or “translating”, etc.
-item 1b: Although the abstract format in different journals are variously, the translation aims, procedure and corresponding results, statistical methods, and psychological metrics in target language should be provided at least.
Section 2. Introduction
-item 2a: Briefly describe the basic characters of original instrument, as well as the translation advances in all languages. The rational of translation should be provided clearly, so the evidence based on a comprehensive literature research in the widely used academical platforms in the target language was highly recommended.
-item 2b: Claim the objectives of the whole research and present manuscript.
Section 3. Methods
-item 3a: Provide the authorization date and types of User-Agreement and Translation Agreement from the copyright owner or author. All the agreements must be obtained before the study beginning and listed in the article appendix. If the copyright is public or free, the authorization was not necessary, but it should be clarified in the article.
-item 3b: Describe whether the study was approved by the ethical commission, and the commission name and approval date if yes.
-item 4: Provide the inclusion criteria and samples for researchers (education degree, specialty, language skills, standard operation procedure trained, etc.), experts (title grade, country/states, research background, etc.), examinee (age, gender, disease, consent, etc.) and their missions in each step. And note that the description of researchers and experts are usually ignored, so much attention should be paid on them.
-item 5-8: They are the core methods sets for CCA research, so the more detailed information the better. The different forward and back translation versions were recommended to being attached to the appendix.
-item 9: Describe the qualitative methods used for forward and back translation, for example, experts item review, focus group, nominal group, cognitive interview, et al. Provide their missions, saturation criteria, and inconsistent solutions.
-item 10-11: Provide the study design, setting, participants, data collection, administration, outcomes, instruments, sample size, etc.. The indicators and criteria for pilot test also should be described. In the psychological properties assessments, the internal consistency, content validity, construct validity and responsiveness must be provided. If applicable, the researcher should provide the test-retest reliability, inter-interviewer reliability, discriminative validity, criterion validity, interpretability, etc.
-item12: Firstly, provide the scoring methods of the translation instrument and its meanings, for instance, higher or lower scores indicate better or worse health status. And, provide all the qualitative and quantitative variables and significant criteria. In addition, the modern test theory field is extremely quickly, so the item response theory, differential item functioning, equating and linking, response shift, etc. are also highly recommended. The software used in the analysis also should be clarified.
Section 4. Results
-item 13: The researchers, experts and examinee participated in the complex research with various aims at different stages, their characters are so multiplex that authors usually intentionally or unintentionally ignored the reporting. This may decrease the research quality and result in many confusions on the information resource. Therefore, a structured form was highly recommended to providing their sociological and professional background characteristics (such as gender, age, title, occupation, geographic area, professional background, etc.) at different research stages (such as forward translation, backward translation, experts qualitative review, pilot Testing, field Testing. etc.).
-item 14: Provide the detailed characters of different versions of translated instrument at each stage, including the instrument frame, items number, modifications and related reasons. A flow diagram was recommended in the text or appendix.
-item 15: Provide all the results pre-defined in the statistical protocol without publish biases, regardless positive or negative, good or bad. It is important to note that the psychological properties assessments in field test are the core of instrument CCA research, so the more information the better. The routine analysis contains reliability, validity, responsiveness, interpretation, etc. If the researcher introduced the modern measurement theory, the model assumptions, model fits and item parameters estimation should be described clearly at least. If the publication does not allow for a detailed presentation, reference to a more detailed presentation elsewhere should be made, for example, availability of the full results from the authors or online, or publication of a separate paper.
-item 16: Besides the pre-defined analysis, the exploratory analysis can also be conducted for the subgroups or other temporary situations occurred in the study, but the impact on the primary results needs to be presented. Although some experts claimed that this item is not necessary, the research team believes that CCA research usually faces more unexpected situations than development research, because people lived in different cultures usually have various value systems, goals, expectations, standards and concerns, which maybe result in more unexpected manifestations. So, more attentions on these temporary situations and explanations in the reporting are very necessary for researchers and examinee to understand the uniqueness of the target culture.
Section 5. Discussion
-item 17: Synthesize all the evidence produced in the study and generate a comprehensive main result, regardless negative or positive, qualitative or quantitative, confirmatory or exploratory findings and related clues. In addition, please interpret and evaluate the relationship between the actual evidences and expecting hypothesis.
-item 18: Firstly, longitudinal compares the different versions of translated instrument generated in the CCA research, especially the original and final targeted instrument, including the instrument frame, scoring and administrative model, psychological properties, etc. The similar parallel comparison of other translated versions should be also provided, especially the distinctive characters of each language.
-item 19: Describe the advantages and limitations of the instrument CCA research, and indicate the impact from the shortcomings and solutions.
-item 20: The authorization from the copyright owner in CCA research is very important. It is equally important that translators should return related documents, results and interpretations of the translation to the copyright owner. If applicable, the assessment and advice from the copyright owner should be also provided. If the copyright is public or free, it is not subject to this restriction.
-item 21: The lack of using strategies usually confusing users once they need the instrument. Please provide the key information of instrument obtaining, paying, printing, administrating, scoring, analyzing and results interpreting.
-item 22: Basing on all the evidences generated in the study, please describe the main findings and give a rational explanation and evaluation, as well as the inspirations of further research.
Section 6. Other information
-item 23: If the detailed information was not allowed in the text, please provide them as much as possible in the appendix, includes but not limits to the final target instrument, original instrument, research manual, authorizations, ethics permission, series of instruments generated in the CCA procedure, etc.
-item 24: List all the funding and provide their potential influence on present and future studies, including the sponsor’s participation degree and impact on the study design, implementation, analysis, and result interpretation.
Advantages and Limitations
The main advantage of this study are the comprehensive quantitative analysis with rigorous statistically criteria for the items and rounds analysis for the Delphi survey, which raised the credibility and uniformity. In the meantime, we performed saturated information extraction of expert's qualitative reviews to surmount the possible weaknesses for quantitative analysis.
The primary limitation of this study are that the “final” version of IRICA statement is not really “final” but a preliminary draft, because it lacks of face-to-face consensus discussion, pilot test, international feedback and criticism, etc., accorded to the guidance for developers of health research reporting guidelines[14]. The second limitation are the narrow geographic representation of the experts participated in the Delphi survey, though they have plentiful professional backgrounds and title grades. It may be results in the loss of many cutting-edge views, at least to some extent. Therefore, this statement maybe receives more accusations or oppositions. However, this exact is an important purpose of this paper, which is to seek more and wider professional opinions from global researchers. Any constructive comments, advice and criticisms are welcomed to the corresponding author. The optimization of this statement aims to improve its science and recognition is still continuing.