26 July to 30 July
One of the objectives of my PhD is to translate and linguistically validate two chronic pain questionnaires from English to Arabic to use in Libya. Initially I thought this would be an easy task but the translation task has proven to be very challenging and time consuming. Nevertheless, the experience of working across languages and cultures has been extremely valuable to my development as a person and as a PhD student. I have had to reflect critically on my prior beliefs about how people from different cultures and countries use language to communicate their experience of Pain. Some pain expressions in English have no equivalent in Arabic and vice versa. However, most words in the English questionnaires were easily translated into Arabic.
I tested the final version of the translated questionnaires on a sample of Libyan pain patients using telephone survey techniques and compared the results of the Libyan patients with their European counterparts. I was very surprised by the similarities between English and Libyan peoples' feelings about their pain, despite large differences in the health care systems to manage chronic pain in the respective countries. My research suggests that similarities between different societies in pain experience are the norm.
Raga Elzahaf, PhD Student
Centre for Pain Research
Faculty of Health