Translation, cross cultural adaptation and reliability of Edward’s Social Desirability scale in Marathi version

Abstract

Background Social Desirability is ‘propensity to give answers that will make respondent look good’ with regard to current social norms including values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors shared by group of people. It was derived more than 50 years ago; interviewers observed that when certain question is asked the respondent might not be true. It was developed by Edwards in year 1957; consists of 39 questions to which respondent has to answer as ‘True’ /‘False’. Aim- Translation, Cross cultural adaptation and reliability for use in Marathi, to assess social desirability. Methods conducted in two phases. Phase 1- translating into Marathi- forward translation, then backward translation to check difference. Phase 2- Testing reliability. Result Chronbach’s alpha – 0.94 Internal consistency – 0.81 ICC – 0.8 Correlation on day 1 and 15 was highly significant. Conclusion Marathi version had acceptable value for reliability.