OBJECTIVES: Embarrassment has been an important feature of essential tremor (ET) and Parkinson diseases since the beginning. Most of the time, patients need the care of family members to perform normal actions, which also support them emotionally and psychologically. The aim was to evaluate the linguistic translation and cultural adaptation of the ETEA (Essential Tremor Embarrassment Assessment) questionnaire to Romanian language, in order to asses the level of embarrassment of patients with Parkinson disease.

METHODS: Two independent translators (specialized clinicians) were given the English version to translate it in Romanian. After the first translation, the new Romanian version was retranslated in English in order to see the main linguistic differences. A pilot testing phase was performed on twenty five patients to detect possible grammatical mistakes or misunderstandings. The responders had to answer to 14 questions, some with closed answers, but some with opened answers. For each item, respondents were requested to affirm from 0 to 5 if they disagree-strongly agree to the question they were answering. All comments and responses were recorded and reviewed for accuracy at the end of each interview.

RESULTS: The patients included in the pilot testing phase were 80% male and had mean age±SD, 42.4±12.1 years. The range time for answering all of the questions is between 3 to 10 minutes for each patient. Average time to answer was 7.18min (SD=2.17). Two aspects of the questionnaires translation were found particularly problematic: the frame questions and the response options for some of the questions. The main problem with the frame questions was whether the patient will disagree for the first time or they will agree with the first question.

CONCLUSIONS: This study illustrates that the Romanian ETEA is a easy to answer tool to justify embarrassment evaluation for further treatments of the patients experiencing essential tremor in Romania.