Abstract:
The study was designed to translate all the subscales of Vanderbilt Fatigue Scale-Pediatric (VFS-Peds) to Kannada, and to assess its validity. The study was conducted in two different phases. Phase I included translation and content validation of VFS-Peds Kannada version, where the translation process involved forward translation, backward translation along with the content validation by five experts in the field of audiology and speech language pathology along with there parents and teachers. Content validation was done using four-point Likert scale for clarity. P:hase II assessed the construct validity of the translated material. This was done by comparing the VFS-Peds Kannada version scores between normal-hearing children and children using CI. The final translated and validated VFS-Peds in Kannada version was administered on 15 childrens with normal hearing and 15 children with CI in the age range of 6 to 17 years along with their parents and teachers. The overall results from the current study using the VFS-Ped (Kannada Version) suggests that the normal hearing children have significantly lesser amount of fatigue when compared to children with cochlear implantation across all the sub scales of VFS-Ped confirming construct validity of the translated material. The translation process involved rigorous steps to maintain fidelity to the original version.
