Urdu translation and validation of clinically useful depression outcome scale.

Objective: To translate and validate the Clinically Useful Depression Outcome Scale for Urdu-speaking population.

Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted in Rawalpindi and Islamabad from January 2018 to November 2019. The process of translation and validation was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, the scale was forward and backward translated. In the second phase two validation studies were conducted; one for computing Cronbach's alpha, test-retest reliability, and item-total correlation, and exploring convergent and discriminant validity; and the other for exploring linguistic equivalence between the original and the translated scale. Data was analysed using SPSS 22.

Results: The first validation study had 170 subjects; 85(50%) in clinical and 85(50%) in non-clinical settings. The translated scale was found to be internally consistent, and convergent and discriminant validity coefficients were significant (p<0.05). Mean difference between clinical and non-clinical groups was also significant (p<0.05), indicating the diagnostic capability of the translated scale. The second validation study, conducted on a separate sample of 82 bilingual participants, showed that the mean difference between the original and the translated version was non-significant (p>0.05), indicating that the Urdu version can be considered an equivalent to the original scale.

Conclusions: The translated version of the Clinically Useful Depression Outcome Scale (CUDOS-Urdu) was found to be a reliable and valid instrument for measuring depressive symptoms in Urdu-speaking individuals.