Translation of Verran Snyder-Halpern sleep scale into Russian

Abstract

This thesis offers an overview of Russian immigration and a summary of the impact of Soviet Socialism on attitudes ofRussian society. The emigre endures barriers to health services based on cultural and language differences and little is known of Russian health practices. The elderly are vulnerable to health problems because of the poor health care in the old USSR. The author identifies chronic ill health and depression as contributing to reported sleep disturbances, leading to exacerbation of physical and emotional illness. A search for Russian language health assessment forms revealed none existed. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a rigorous process for translating an English instrument, the V erran Snyder-Halpern Sleep Scale, into Russian while preserving cultural and linguistic equivalency. By adopting principles from cross-cultural psychology, the author develops a protocol for an asymmetrical translation using content equivalence, forward and back-translation, analysis of back-translations, and bilingual error in meaning checks. The result was a Russian version of the Verran Snyder-Halpern Sleep Scale that is culturally and linguistically equivalent.