Transcultural Validation and Adaptation of the Academic Stress Questionnaire (CEA) in Students of Puerto Rico

Background: There are multiple questionnaires to measure academic stress in university students, which have been used in nursing students. In Puerto Rico, a questionnaire valid in content and reliability was required to measure the variable of academic stress in nursing students. Purpose: The aim of this study was to adapt transculturally and validate the Academic Stress Questionnaire (CEA) for its use in Puerto Rico. Materials and Methods: Used for the first phase of this study consisted in the evaluation of the validity of content and appearance, whereas the second phase was the actual administering of the questionnaire to 20 (twenty) nursing students, to pilot test its internal consistency using the Cronbach’s α test. Results: Validity of content and appearance allowed for the modification of the questionnaire into one, consisting of 42 items, thus eliminating 34 premises from the original 76 items the questionnaire was composed of. Furthermore, the appearance of the questionnaire was modified by placing the measuring scales in columns, adapting social, demographic, and academic data to the required Puerto Rican reality. The sections meant to measure the academic stress variables were left intact, except for the linguistics adaptation, which was accomplished by a team of experts in the Spanish language. With an α global of 0.80 and coefficients larger than 0.7 in the multi-item sub scales, which oscillated between 0.750 and 0.860, the questionnaire provides a high reliability. Conclusion: Although the values reported in this study are somewhat lower than previous research, they were comparable the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients reported by Cabanach, in which the numbers reported are considered high (α > 0.70) which show acceptable confiability of the subscales included in the study and a high degree of consistency and thus can be relied upon in future research. In synthesis, the Academic Stress Questionnaire (CEA) modified and adapted, thoroughly fulfills the established criteria of confiability and validity to evaluate academic stress of Puertorrican nursing students.

Validation of the Arabic version of the Ocular Surface Disease Index Questionnaire

AIM: To develop an Arabic version of the ocular surface disease index(OSDI) and to assess its reliability and validity.METHODS: A cross sectional study was carried out to validate the Arabic version of the OSDI questionnaire. Initially, forward-backward translation was used to translate the English version of OSDI into Arabic. The translated questionnaire was tested for equivalence and cultural adaptability. Totally 200 subjects were then recruited from a non-clinical population and asked to complete the Arabic version of the OSDI(ARB-OSDI). The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed using Cronbach’s-α. A subgroup of 30 participants was asked to complete the questionnaire on two occasions to test the test-retest reliability.RESULTS: A total of 200 participants were enrolled in the study. The average age of the study participants was 31.21±13.2 y and 57% were male. An acceptable internal consistency level for the ARB-OSDI questionnaire measured by Cronbach’s-α was revealed. All questions showed good internal consistency. Test-retest reliability analysis revealed good stability(interclass correlation coefficient, r=0.832, P<0.001). The construct validity for the questionnaire was also high.CONCLUSION: The ARB-OSDI questionnaire shows very good psychometric properties(acceptable internal consistency and test-retest reliability). That makes the questionnaire a valid potential tool to use in Arabic-speaking countries to monitor symptoms of dry eye disease in a larger population.