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Abstract Background Duke Activity Status Index (DASI) is a widely used tool to assess functional capacity among patients, but there is no Sinhala version validated for patients in Sri Lanka. This study aimed to cross-culturally adapt and test the validity and reliability of the Sinhala version of DASI (DASI-S). Methods The translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the DASI questionnaire were conducted following the standard guidelines. It was pre-tested on ten pre-operative patients and further modified. The construct validity and reliability of DASI-S were evaluated by administering the modified final DASI-S, which comprised 12 items, along with the physical functioning sub-scale of the 36-item short-form health survey (SF-36), consisting of 10 items to eighty-one patients who were awaiting non-cardiac surgeries at university surgical wards, National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL), and Colombo North Teaching Hospital (CNTH), Sri Lanka. Reliability was assessed through Cronbach alpha, while the validity was evaluated using factor analysis and Spearman’s correlation. The ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Review Committee, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Results The mean age of the participants was 46.2 (± 16.6) years and the majority were females (54.3%). The mean height, weight, and body mass index of the sample were 160.5 (± 9.6) cm, 60.3 (± 11.9) kg, and 23.4 (± 4.5) kgm−2 respectively. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the internal consistency of DASI-S was 0.861. The concurrent validity of DASI-S was substantiated by positively correlating (p

Introduction: Literature revealed the lack of a comprehensive tool to assess organizational consequences of occupational stress (OCOS) among schoolteachers. Objectives: To develop and validate an instrument to measure the OCOS among secondary school teachers in Sinhala medium government schools (OCOST-Sinhala) Methods: Triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods was used to design and validate OCOST-Sinhala. Item generation was guided by a conceptual framework. Reducing the items was through an assessment of a panel of experts and by Principal Component Analysis (PCA). PCA was performed among 360 secondary teachers to assess the factor structure. Construct validity was assessed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and a multi-trait scaling analysis in a survey among 300 secondary teachers. Cronbach’ alpha and test re-test reliability were determined. Results: OCOST-Sinhala had 45 items in seven domains (self-efficacy, work engagement, motivation, job satisfaction, enthusiasm, workload & work performance). In PCA, 65.98% of the variance was explained. All the indices used to evaluate the fitness of the model, confirmed that the statistical fitness of the original seven factors model provide valid results. CFA and multi-trait scaling analysis confirmed the construct validity with reliability confirmed as good (Cronbach’s alpha 0.92; test re-test reliability >0.7). Conclusions & Recommendations: The developed OCOST-Sinhala was found to be a valid and reliable test to assess OCOS among secondary school teachers in Sri Lanka.

IntroductionDespite the availability of validated psychometrics tools to assess depression, there has not been any validated and reliable tool established to test perceived stress among Sri Lankans. The objective of this study is to test the validity and reliability of the Sinhalese Version of the Sheldon Cohen Perceived Stress Scale.Materials and methodsStandard and systematic procedures were adopted to translate the original English version of the Perceived Stress Scale-10 questionnaire into Sinhalese. Consecutive sampling was employed to recruit the Type 2 Diabetes mellitus (T2DM) sample (n = 321), and a convenient sampling was used to recruit the Age and Sex matched Healthy Controls (ASMHC) (n = 101) and the Healthy Community Controls (HCC) groups (n = 75). Cronbach alpha was used to assess internal consistency and reliability was determined using test–retest method utilizing Spearman’s correlation coefficient. Sensitivity was evaluated by comparing the mean scores of the Sinhalese Perceived Stress Scale (S-PSS-10) and Sinhalese Patient Health Questionnaire (S-PHQ-9) scores. Post-hoc comparisons were done using Bonferroni’s method. Mean scores were compared between the T2DM, ASMHC, and HCC groups using the independent t-test. Explanatory Factor Analysis (EFA) was conducted using the principal component and Varimax rotation while the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed to assess the goodness-of-fit of the factor structure extracted from the EFA. Concurrent validity was assessed using the Pearson correlation between the S-PSS-10 and Patient Health Questionnaire measured by S-PHQ-9 (p

Introduction: Anxiety disorders is one of the most prevalent psycho-pathological condition among children and adolescents. Screen for Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED)-Child version is a cross-culturally validated self administered questionnaire to detect children with anxiety disorders. Objectives: To assess the validity and reliability of SCARED-Child to identify anxiety among adolescents aged 13-15 years attending government schools (Sinhala medium) in the district of Colombo, Sri Lanka Methods: The SCARED-Child was culturally adapted, translated to Sinhala and its judgmental validity was ensured. The instrument was validated among 423 adolescents aged 13-15 years in Colombo District by assessing criterion validity using the diagnosis made by a consultant psychiatrist as the gold standard, developing clinically validated cut-off values using ROC curve. The internal consistency and test-retest assessment were used to assess the reliability. Results: The culturally adapted and translated SCARED-Child (Sinhala version) showed sensitivity of 85.7% (95% CI=74.61, 93.25) and specificity of 91.3% (95% CI=88.0, 94.07) at a cut-off of 36.5, with a high reliability of Cronbach's alpha (0.87) and test-retest correlation coefficient (0.74). Conclusions & Recommendations: This study revealed that SCARED-Child has a high validity and excellent reliability to identify a child with an anxiety disorder at community setting.

Directives is an important area of study in child language development and language socialization since it illustrates children’s ability to affect the behavior of others around them by using language. However, we have no account of directives by children in Sinhala. A study of Sinhala directives by children is important given that research on diverse languages contribute to significant changes in our knowledge of both the typology and the linguistic resources used for directives in general. The main aim of this study is to record the forms of directives used by children speaking Sinhala as a first language. Sinhala, the dominant language of Sri Lanka, is little studied in terms of pragmatics. Therefore, a secondary purpose of this study is to contribute to the knowledge of Sinhala pragmatics. Using recorded data and observation from children and their caregivers, this paper studies the use of Sinhala directives by middle class children and their adult caretakers in Sri Lanka. The study shows that children from 2-4 years of age are able to use directives appropriate to their pragmatic function. It also shows surprising findings on children’s use of (im)polite language, an area that needs more research.

Sinhala is a language in which a focus particle may be used for marking focus with no visible movement. In Sinhala, a focused constituent can be delimited by a focus particle appearing in clause-internal position, but the same particle is often allowed to occur in clause-final scope position as well, in which case a focused constituent is not overtly marked by the particle. In this paper, I argue that the focus particle located in a focus-delimiting position is raised to the scope position in the CP domain to specify the scope of its associated focus constituent. Focus particles are distinguished according to whether or not they carry an interrogative meaning. On the basis of wh-island effects observed for long distance pseudo-clefting in interrogative focus concord constructions, and their absence in non-interrogative focus concord constructions, it is suggested that a non-interrogative focus particle is located in FocP, and an interrogative focus particle, ForceP at the LF level. It is also shown that A’-movement of a focus particle to its scope position can take place either in narrow syntax or at LF even if it appears in clause-internal position in the surface strings.

This study traces the historical development of the focus concord construction of Sinhala from the language of the pre-second millennial graffiti on the Mirror Wall at Sigiriya to the modern colloquial language, with comparison to the historical development of focus concord constructions in the south Dravidian languages Malayalam and Tamil, as well as the focus concord (kakari-musubi) construction of Japanese. I argue that the Sinhala focus concord construction originated as one particular usage of impersonal verbal nominalisations in Old Sinhala, developed into a predicative clefting construction in Classical Sinhala, and in the modern colloquial language has become a phenomenon involving verb forms showing a sort of agreement with focussed elements.

This paper focuses on the functions of English versus other languages in Sri Lankan Buddhist rituals. The framework for this paper is based on a previous work on the language of Hindu rituals by Pandharipande (2012). This study aims to examine the following research questions: what languages are used for practicing Buddhism? Is English used in Buddhist rituals? What mechanisms are used to sanction change? and (4) Will English replace Sinhala and Pali in the UK? In order to answer these research questions, I collected data by attending Sri Lankan Buddhist festivals and event in the UK and recording sermons and speeches used during these festivals to gather information regarding language use and language change. The study proved to be a worthy investigation, as unlike in Sri Lanka where only either Sinhala or Pali is sanctioned in Buddhist practice, in the UK, Sinhala is undergoing language shift and is being replaced by English during Buddhist sermons and other activities. Although prayers and ritual chantings are still in Pali, most of these are explained to the congregation using English. In addition, the use of English is also sanctioned by the Buddhist clergy, through the use of the internet and other media for purposes of promoting Buddhism and reaching young Sri Lankans born in the UK.

Abstract Background The concept Health related Quality of life (HRQOL) is increasingly recognized as an important health outcome measure in clinical and research fields. The present study attempted to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Sinhala version of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ 4.0 (PedsQL™ 4.0) Generic Core Scales among adolescents in Sri Lanka. Methods The original US PedsQL™ was translated into Sinhala and conceptually validated according to international guidelines. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 142 healthy school going adolescents (12-14 years), their parents (n = 120) and a group of adolescents with asthma who attended asthma clinics (n = 115). Reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha and validity by examining scale structure, exploring inter-scale correlations and comparing across known groups (healthy vs. chronically ill). Results The PedsQL™ Sinhala version was found to be acceptable with minimal missing responses. All scales demonstrated satisfactory reliability. Cronbach’s alpha for the total scale scores was 0.85 for adolescent self-report while for the parent proxy-report for the healthy group it was 0.86. No floor effects were observed. Ceiling effects were noticed in self-report and parent proxy-report for the healthy group. Overall results of the multi trait scaling analysis confirmed the scale structure with 74% item-convergent validity, 88% item-discriminant validity and an overall scaling success of 72%. Moderate to high correlations were shown among the domains of teen self-report (Spearman rho = .37-.54) and between teen self-report and parent proxy-reports (Spearman rho = .41-.57). The PedsQL™ tool was able to discriminate between the quality of life in healthy adolescents and adolescents with asthma. Conclusion The findings support the reliability and validity of the Sinhala version of the PedsQL™ 4.0 Generic Core Scales as a generic instrument to measure HRQOL among early adolescents in Sri Lanka in a population setting.