Cross-cultural adaptation, translation and pre-testing of the Caregiver Analysis of Reported Experiences with Swallowing Disorders (CARES) screening tool in Kannada

Background: Dysphagia in a family member may negatively influence caregivers and may disrupt their quality of life. Thus, it is crucial to understand caregiver perspectives as an integral component of holistic dysphagia treatment. Hence, the present study aimed to cross-culturally adapt, translate, and pre-test the Caregiver’s Analysis of Reported Experiences with Swallowing Disorders (CARES) into the Kannada language, a structural screening tool for assessing caregiver burden associated with dysphagia. Methods: The Kannada version of the CARES screening tool was cross-culturally adapted using the ISPOR Principles of Good Practice for Patient-Reported Outcome Measures and was pre-tested on 48 dysphagia caregivers of adult dysphagia cancer survivors. The internal consistency of each item was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha. Results: The results revealed that the Kannada version of the CARES screening tool had good internal consistency for each subscale, Part A—Checklist of Behavioral and Functional Changes”, and Part B—Measures of Subjective Caregiver Stress, with α = 0.763 and α = 0.852, respectively. The item-total correlation of each item of the subscale was greater than 0.8, indicating that each item of the tool significantly contributed to the tool. Conclusions: The Kannada CARES was found to have good internal consistency. Hence, it can be considered a linguistically equivalent tool for identifying caregiver burdens associated with dysphagia care.