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Cognitive testing of the WHOQOL-BREF Bangladesh tool in a northern rural Bangladeshi population with lymphatic filariasis

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to test the cultural suitability of the WHOQOL-BREF Bangladesh for a rural village population in Bangladesh.

Methods

Participants (n = 35) were purposefully stratified for age, gender, education level and location from the Nilphamari district in northern rural Bangladesh. Cognitive interviews were conducted via an emergent probing method to identify issues with language and constructs within the tool. Data were collected through note taking and recordings of interviews. A coding framework was used to identify key issues with questions, which were analysed using SPSS version 19 and Chi-square analysis using a Fisher’s exact test to determine statistically significant variances within the sample.

Results

Twenty-two of the 26 questions in the tool were found to be problematic. The majority of problems with questions related to wording and conceptual difficulties. The majority of participants found the tool to be overly formal. Issues with translation appeared to affect the interpretation of a number of questions, and some concepts in the tool were found to be irrelevant in a village setting. There were statistically significant differences between those of different educational backgrounds and between genders.

Conclusions

The study found that the WHOQOL-BREF Bangladesh as it currently stands is not culturally or linguistically suitable for use within a rural northern Bangladeshi population.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge Dr. Badrul Alam for his cultural mentoring on this project and the hard work of our in-country research assistants Nur-E-Habiba, Rosy Karna, Shema Mhajabin, Zahida Khan and Joyanto Kumar Sadhu. The first author was funded to complete this research through the Australian Government Australian Post Graduate Award Scheme and the AusAid/DEEWER Endeavour Research Fellowship (Bangladesh).

Conflict of interest

There is no conflict of interest with this funding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Occupational Therapy, School of Public Health, Tropical Medicine and Rehabilitation Sciences, James Cook University, Douglas, QLD, 4811, Australia

    Lynne Zeldenryk

  2. Occupational Therapy, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, QLD, Australia

    Marion Gray

  3. Institute of Allergy and Clinical Immunology of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Moazzem Hossain

  4. School of Public Health, Tropical Medicine and Rehabilitation Sciences, James Cook University, Douglas, QLD, 4811, Australia

    Susan Gordon, Richard Speare, Wayne Melrose & Gary Williams

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  1. Lynne Zeldenryk
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  2. Susan Gordon
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  4. Richard Speare
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  5. Wayne Melrose
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  6. Moazzem Hossain
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  7. Gary Williams
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Correspondence to Lynne Zeldenryk.

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Zeldenryk, L., Gordon, S., Gray, M. et al. Cognitive testing of the WHOQOL-BREF Bangladesh tool in a northern rural Bangladeshi population with lymphatic filariasis. Qual Life Res 22, 1917–1926 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-012-0333-1

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