Translation, cultural adaptation and linguistic validation of the postgraduate hospital educational environment measure into Arabic

Abstract Background Assessment of the clinical learning environment (CLE) is an essential step that teaching hospitals routinely undertake to ensure the environment is conducive, learning-oriented and supportive of junior doctors’ education. The Postgraduate Hospital Educational Environment Measure (PHEEM) is an internationally recognized tool for assessing the CLE with evidence of high reliability and validity. Translation of PHEEM into other languages such as Spanish, Japanese and Persian enabled wider adoption of the instrument in the world. However, in Syria and other Arabic countries, a validated Arabic translation of PHEEM is still not available, making it difficult to adopt it and use it in Arabic contexts. This study aims to translate and culturally adapt the PHEEM from English into Arabic. Methods This study followed the structured translation and validation process guideline proposed by Sousa the calculated scale-CVI was 0.945. Discussion This study provided the first linguistically valid Arabic translation of the widely used PHEEM inventory. The next step is to conduct a full psychometric analysis of the Arabic PHEEM to provide further evidence of validity and reliability.