It is important to note that up until now no such approach has been internationally validated with chemical sets, which were not part of the training set (external validation), and broadly accepted.
The BFI is widely used, has been internationally validated, and is currently available in at least ten languages.
The AUDIT has been internationally validated on primary health care patients [16] and used previously in Goa, India with industrial workers and primary care samples [17] [20].
The demographic and health surveys are internationally validated and nationally adapted surveys.
The questionnaire has been internationally validated, and internal consistency for all scales is good (ɑ > 0.70), as is test retest reliability (interclass correlations >0.70) [ 14].
13 IPAQ has been internationally validated, and measures the frequency and duration of any walking, other moderate or vigorous-intensity physical activity undertaken for more than 10 continuous minutes across all contexts (eg, work, home and leisure) over a 7-day period.
The PHQ-9 was used because it is an internationally validated screening tool, although at the time of conducting this study, the PHQ-9 had not been validated for use in Sri Lanka [ 32]; therefore it was translated from English into Sinhala and back-translated prior to use.
The EPDS is an internationally validated scale developed specifically to assess postpartum depression and is the most widely used measure for postpartum depression in low- and middle-income settings [ 33, 68- 70].
MAPLe is an internationally validated predictor of nursing home placements, caregiver distress and ratings that the client would be better off elsewhere [ 45].
Finally, although EORTC QLQ-C30 is an internationally validated, widely used questionnaire for assessing the HRQL in oncology, melanoma specific HRQL questions might not have been addressed.
