Cultural adaptation and validation of Safety Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ) for child protection services

Various survey reports published since the 1980s point to the historical persistence of difficult practice conditions for practitioners working in Quebec's youth protection system. The absence of validated measurement tools capable of describing, comparing over time, and detecting indicators in practice makes it difficult to analyze the impact of reforms on the safety culture of professionals. (1) Present the process of translating and adapting the Safety Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ) in a youth protection context, (2) test the construct validity of the French version of the SAQ for youth protection (SAQ-Fr-PJ), (3) document each subscale's reliability in terms of internal consistency. 309 youth protection workers from six regions of Quebec completed the experimental version of the SAQ-Fr-PJ. The SAQ-Fr-PJ translation and cultural adaptation process comprised four phases: 1) preliminary version development, 2) preliminary version evaluation and cross-cultural adaptation, 3) evaluation of statement clarity (pretest), 4) experimental version development. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to compare several models. The model selected corresponds to the original structure of the SAQ - Short Form, excluding two items. Fit indices suggest acceptable construct validity for this model. Internal consistency is good, with Cronbach's alpha values ranging from 0.712 to 0.879. The results of our study, the first to complete the translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the SAQ to the French youth protection context, support the reliability and validity of the original six-dimension model. The SAQ-Fr-PJ may help to understand and compare the dimensions of safety culture in the future. • Quebec's youth protection lacks validated tools to assess professionals' practice conditions. • This study reviews the translation in French, adaptation, and validation of the Safety Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ) for youth protection. • The SAQ assesses safety culture in high-risk organizations like hospitals but is rarely used in youth protection. • Findings show the SAQ is reliable and valid for assessing safety culture in youth protection. • The SAQ-Fr-PJ can help stakeholders obtain reliable information about safety culture and target interventions.