‘Cochrane Kompakt,’ the German translation project, is a joint effort between Cochrane Germany, Cochrane Austria, and Cochrane Switzerland. Cordula Braun, from the Department of Physiotherapy at hochschule 21 in Germany, gave a presentation on a collaboration between German physiotherapists and the Cochrane Bone, Joint and Muscle Trauma Group to translate and disseminate physiotherapy-related Cochrane Reviews at the Cochrane Colloquium in Vienna, and shares their story here now.

Our team of German physiotherapists has been translating plain language summaries (PLS) of relevant new and updated Reviews in the area of physiotherapy, as well as contributing to the wider German translation project since 2014. In a joint project with the Cochrane Bone, Joint and Muscle Trauma Group (BJMT), we translated 10 PLS of their Reviews. Our aim was to examine and document the translation process in order to provide feedback to the Review Group, and to enhance dissemination of the BJMT Reviews.

We translated the selected BJMT Reviews with input from a native English advisor, and involved at least two translators per PLS. We documented feedback using a form with pre-determined questions. In addition to the German version of cochrane.org, and the Cochrane Library, the translations were co-published in the largest German-language physiotherapy journal, PT – Zeitschrift für Physiotherapeuten. The translation work was funded by Cochrane BJMT.

The Feedback and audit form:

Lessons Learnt:

• Our collaboration between Review Group and a translation team of health professionals allowed translators to discuss questions about the PLS directly with the Review Group, and to give feedback on topics and potential improvements to PLS.
• It allowed us to audit our own translation process in terms of time and processes.
• It helped get findings from relevant Reviews to non-English speaking health professionals and enhanced the dissemination of their Reviews in general.

To learn more, please email cordula_braun@gmx.de