Translation, Cultural Adaptation and Preliminary Psychometric Testing of the Managerial Ethical Profile Scale for Finnish Health and Social Care Sector

Background The Managerial Ethical Profile (MEP) scale was developed to measure the perceived impact of different elements of common ethical frameworks on managerial ethical decision‐making. Aim To translate, culturally adapt and perform preliminary psychometric testing of the MEP scale in the Finnish health and social care sector. Design The MEP scale was translated and culturally adapted according to the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) protocol based on a cross‐sectional online survey. Participants Finnish health and social care managers and experts. Ethical Consideration Research permits were obtained from all participating organisations in accordance with the organisations' guidelines. Participation was voluntary and participants gave informed consent. Methods Translation and cultural adaptation of the Finnish version of the MEP scale (MEP‐Fin) was performed and perceived relevance and content validity were assessed. An online survey was distributed to homecare service managers in 2022, and a total of 68 managers participated. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations, Pearson's correlation coefficients and Cronbach's alphas). Results The translation, cultural adaptation and preliminary psychometric testing process identified issues regarding the understanding of the MEP scale in the Finnish context. The MEP‐Fin showed high overall content validity (S‐CVI/Ave 0.91). The mean score for the comprehensibility of the scale was 8.4. Content validity was high for all individual items (I‐CVI range: 0.56 to 1.00), except for one item (0.38). The Cronbach's alphas for the eight subscales were between 0.51 and 0.93, and for the whole scale, 0.84. Conclusions The systematic translation and cultural adaptation process resulted in a conceptually equal MEP‐Fin, which was perceived as thorough and relevant. It showed good coverage, content validity and internal consistency. Preliminary psychometric testing provided information on the characteristics of the MEP‐Fin for validation. Further studies with larger data sets and different cultures are needed.