title: Reliability and validity of Arabic translation of Medication Adherence Report Scale (MARS) and Beliefs about Medication Questionnaire (BMQ)-specific for use in children and their parents.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  to evaluate the reliability and discriminant validity of Arabic translation of the Medication Adherence Report Scale (MARS) and the Beliefs about Medication Questionnaire-specific (BMQ-specific).
  
  
  METHODS
  Having developed Arabic translations of the study instruments, a cross-sectional study was carried out between March and October 2015 in two multidisciplinary governmental hospitals in Jordan. An expert panel monitored the forward and backward translation of the MARS and BMQ. Standard Arabic was used (with no specific dialect inclusion) to allow greater generalisability across Arabic speaking countries. Once the Arabic translations of the questionnaires were developed they were tested for consistency, validity and reliability on a group of children with chronic diseases and their parents.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 258 parents and 208 children were included in the study. The median age of participated children and parents was 15 years and 42 years respectively. Principle component analysis of all questionnaires indicated that all had good construct validity as they clearly measured one construct. The questionnaires were deemed reliable based on the results of Cronbach alpha coefficient. Furthermore, reliability of the questionnaires was demonstrated by test-retest intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) which ranged from good to excellent for all scales (ICC>0.706). The Pearson correlation coefficient ranged from 0.546-0.805 for the entire sample which indicated a significant moderate to strong positive correlation between MARS and BMQ items at time 1 and 2. Reported adherence was greater than 59% using MARS-children and MARS-parents scales, and was correlated with beliefs in necessity and independent of the concerns regarding medications.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Arabic translations of both BMQ and MARS for use in children and their parents have good internal consistency and proved to be valid and reliable tools that can be used by researchers in clinical practice to measure adherence and beliefs about medications in Arabic speaking patient populations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Applied Science Private University, Amman, Jordan.
authors.forename: Mervat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alsous
authors.affiliation: Faculty of nursing, Philadelphia University, Amman, Jordan.
authors.forename: Fadwa
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Alhalaiqa
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Applied Science Private University, Amman, Jordan.
authors.forename: Rana
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Abu Farha
authors.affiliation: Department of Biopharmaceutics and Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan.
authors.forename: Mariam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Abdel Jalil
authors.affiliation: Clinical and Practice Research Group, School of Pharmacy, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: McElnay
authors.affiliation: Centre for Behavioural Medicine, UCL School of Pharmacy, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Horne
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007597:Jordan; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D055118:Medication Adherence; D008875:Middle Aged; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D014177:Translations; D055815:Young Adult