Distress thermometer

: tradução e validação linguística para a população portuguesa

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The diagnosis of a severe illness and/or of an incurable disease leads to a moment of crises in a patient’s life, leading to an adaptation process of the illness. It is normal for the patient to experience distress at some point, throughout the disease. The Distress Thermometer (DT) is a simple and quick assessment tool. Its goal is to identify the distress level and its possible causes in the previous week, up to, and including, the assessment day. It is made-up by two instruments, one which numerates the levels of distress (thermometer) and the other which identifies its possible causes (problem list). Translating and validating the DT for the portuguese population is imperative in order to provide portuguese healthcare professionals with an assessment tool that will allow them to provide an adequate clinical response, according to their patients’ needs. METHODS: This study consists of a step-by-step description of the translation process, back translation and linguistic validation of the DT. RESULTS: From the translation process and linguistic validation resulted a version of the DT adapted for the portuguese language. CONCLUSIONS: Shortly after the psychometric validation, the translation and linguistic validation of the DT will allow this tool to become available for healthcare professionals to identify and treat distress within the portuguese population.

Date of Award	10 May 2022
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Manuel Luís Capelas (Supervisor)