BACK TRANSLATION

ICFs are highly technical documents, so careful translation by certified medical translators is essential. Translation errors can change the meaning of important content, causing potential subjects to receive inaccurate information. They can also confuse meaning, so the ICF is more difficult to understand.

In a normal translation process, the translator translates the document; an editor then reviews the translation and makes corrections. A more robust process involves ‘back-translation’, whereby a second translator translates the foreign language ICF back to the original language. The original and back-translated versions of the ICF can be compared side-by-side by the original authors of the document or the IRB/ethical committee. Although back translation is a costly process - approximately doubling the translation costs – some ethical committees and IRBs require it.

Global Translation provides back translations for leading pharmaceutical companies and CROs. This includes back translation from the following languages into English: German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, French, Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.