Establishing the Cultural Equivalence of the Young Children's Participation and Environment Measure (YC-PEM) for Use in Singapore.

AIMS

Establishing the cultural equivalence of clinical assessments is critical to ensuring culturally competent care. Developed in North America, the Young Children's Participation and Environment Measure (YC-PEM) is a caregiver questionnaire of participation in home, preschool, and community activities and perceptions of environmental impact on participation. The purpose of this study is to establish the cultural equivalence of YC-PEM content for use in Singapore.

METHODS

We conducted semi-structured interviews with ten early childhood and healthcare providers and cognitive interviews with ten parents in Singapore to examine the relevance of original YC-PEM content (activities, environmental factors, item wording). Interviews were transcribed, summarized, and categorized according to item, semantic, conceptual, and operational dimensions of the Applied Cultural Framework that served as a decision-making guide to keep, modify, or delete the items.

RESULTS

Providers and parents agreed on conceptual, item and semantic changes but less on operational changes. Significant changes were made to improve comprehension of the YC-PEM.

CONCLUSIONS

Despite using the same language, the majority of the YC-PEM items needed modification to be relevant to the Singapore culture. Cultural adaptation of the YC-PEM is important because there are cultural differences in children's participation and their environments, as well as the way people understand words.