Harmonization

A service to guarantee the uniformity and coherence of the content of material translated into different languages, with the aim of ensuring an authentic message in all versions. It is often used as a linguistic validation method for questionnaires applied to patients and caregivers, due to the rigor required in a clinical study. Universus Traduções has been involved in harmonization projects for over 10 years.

A harmonization project has the following stages:

1) Two translators who are native speakers of the target language and are experienced in translating health questionnaires independently translate the document.

2) After both translations are complete, the two translators compare their translations and produce a third translation jointly. This process of discussion and review is known as "harmonizing" and the resulting third translation is referred to as the "harmonized translation.”

3) The harmonized translation is then given to a native English-speaking translator for translation back into English. This document is referred to as the "back-translation."

4) A project manager compares the original English to the back-translation and either approves or questions each item in the back-translation.

5) The project manager discusses concerns with the three translators, who may change the translation, change the back-translation, or leave the translation as it is, providing a justification to the project manager. A new harmonized translation and back-translation may be  created.

6) A survey research expert (or author, if available) compares the original English to the harmonized back-translation and either approves or questions each item.

7) If portions of the back-translation are not approved, then the translation is sent back to the three translators who may change the translation, change the back-translation, or leave the translation as it is, providing a justification to the survey research expert. This process is repeated until all translation issues have been resolved and the revised back-translation is approved.

8) Local users selected by the client review the translation to identify any additional concerns. If the local user requests changes, steps 1-3 are repeated until all concerns have been addressed and all revisions are approved by the survey research expert.

Source: https://lifesciences.rws.com/das-a/translations/linguistic-validation