Translations

Translation of the CORE-OM started in 2001 with Norwegian (Bokmål). We now have translations into 20 other languages including Welsh, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Greek, Italian, Danish, Icelandic, Swedish, Polish, Finnish, Lithuanian, Slovak, Turkish, Croatian, Albanian and Gujarati. We are currently producing translations for all CORE-OM derivatives as PDFs and have aspirations for the CORE system to become a truly international, multilingual phenomenon over the next decade as it develops from these foundations.

CORE translation requirements
All translations must be approved and coordinated with CORE System Trust. Full details of our requirements which are ISPOR compliant are available from Professor Chris Evans at coretrans@psyctc.org. We require at least five independent forward translations by native speakers of the target language, who are fluent in English. At least one must be a professional translator or interpreter, one a mental health professional and one a layperson. For some languages we have had 10 forward-translations that all differed on many items and parts of the questionnaire!

We try to ensure that cultural and linguistic issues are considered carefully, for example, for Welsh we considered North/South differences, and for Dutch we considered how Flemish people would find the draft. We incorporate this information and the forward translations into a focus group including one of the CORE System trustees (usually Chris Evans), get a check back-translation and field checks with people from different age groups, cultural location and linguistic groups and agree a final version.

Our methods provide excellent translations into lay language. The CORE tradition of allowing paper copies free of charge provided that they are not altered in any way means that they are used as the needs of different services require - which varies with the nature of services in different countries. More detail is available from Professor Evans and no translation should start without him agreeing and approving the process.

As noted above, the CORE-OM has been translated into over 20 languages. Translations are at various stages for the following languages though help is still potentially useful for any of these :

CORE-OM has been translated into 20 languages. The translations process has been completed or is nearly complete for:

British Sign Language (BSL)
Brazilian Portuguese
Argentinian Spanish
Romanian
Bulgarian
Arabic
French
Czech
Bangla/Bengali/Sylheti
isiXhosa
Catalan
Farsi
Kurdish
Kannada
Hindi
Urdu
Tamil
Sámi
Scottish Gaelic
Irish (Irish Gaelic)
Mandarin (and other Chinese languages)
Japanese

People seeking to help with these or other translations or just wanting to express a need for a translation should contact Chris at coretrans@psyctc.org