BioScience Trends. 2010;4(4):170-177.

Translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the Pregnancy Physical Activity Questionnaire (PPAQ) to Japanese.

Matsuzaki M, Haruna M, Ota E, Yeo S, Murayama R, Murashima S

The aim of this study was to conduct a translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the Japanese version of the Pregnancy Physical Activity Questionnaire (PPAQ) that consisted of 36 items. We translated and adapted the PPAQ to the Japanese culture. This procedure included a forward step (stages I and II, translations and synthesis), quality control (stage III, back translation, and stage IV, expert committee review), and pre-testing (stage V). In the pre-test, the preliminary Japanese version was tested on ten Japanese pregnant subjects. The content, semantic, technical, conceptual, and experiential equivalents of cultural adaptation were discussed by the research members at each step. In the results section, one new item was added to address "riding a bicycle in order to go to a certain place other than for recreation or exercise", because many Japanese women often use a bicycle. The average age of the pregnant subjects in the pre-test was 32.7 years of age. The response time ranged from 5 to 15 min. Two subjects responded that they rode a bicycle under the new item. The preliminary Japanese version of the questionnaire was revised to reflect the opinions of pregnant subjects for cross-cultural adaptation, including the semantic, experiential, and technical equivalents. The consensus of content and conceptual equivalents of the pre-final version of PPAQ by discussion among the research members was obtained throughout these processes. The original developer approved all revisions. In conclusion, the pre-finalized Japanese version of the PPAQ was indicated to have cross-cultural equivalency with the original English version.

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