Use of the Research Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders for multinational research: translation efforts and reliability assessments in The Netherlands.
OBJECTIVE
To outline the steps taken to conduct and to culturally adapt Dutch translations of the Research Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders (RDC/TMD) history questionnaire, clinical examination form, and verbal instructions to the patients, and to assess the reliability of the clinical examination.


METHODS
For the linguistic translation from English into Dutch, the forward and back-translation approach was followed. For cultural adaptation, an expert panel reviewed the translation, and a pretest was performed on a small clinical sample. Examiner training and calibration were carried out, and the clinical reliability of a "gold standard examiner" and 3 clinicians was assessed on 18 symptomatic TMD patients and 6 asymptomatic controls. The order of the examinations was based on a quasi-random Latin square design. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were calculated to assess the overall interexaminer reliability of the clinical examination.


RESULTS
A linguistically valid and culturally equivalent translation of the RDC/TMD into Dutch resulted from the above-outlined procedure. As for the clinical reliability, the ICC values obtained could mostly be considered "excellent" or, less frequently, as "fair to good." Poor reliability was found only for some of the palpation tests. For uncommon diagnoses (disc displacement without reduction and without limited mouth opening; osteoarthritis), no reliable ICC value could be calculated.


CONCLUSIONS
The mode described by the authors for preparing clinical sites for RDC/TMD-based research is a feasible one.
Lobbezoo
Frank
F
Department of Oral Function, Academic Centre for Dentistry, Amsterdam (ACTA), Amsterdam, The Netherlands. f.lobbezoo@acta.nl
van Selms
Maurits K A
MK
John
Mike T
MT
Huggins
Kimberly
K
Ohrbach
Richard
R
Visscher
Corine M
CM
van der Zaag
Jacques
J
van der Meulen
Marylee J
MJ
Naeije
Machiel
M
Dworkin
Samuel F
SF
D003142:Communication; D003469:Culture; D018865:Dental Research; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D038801:International Classification of Diseases; D038622:Internationality; D008487:Medical History Taking; D009426:Netherlands; D015588:Observer Variation; D010147:Pain Measurement; D010808:Physical Examination; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013705:Temporomandibular Joint Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014175:Translating