(PS10-A9) Locating and Evaluating Spanish-language Measures of Intimate Partner Violence

Latinx individuals face a number of disparities in seeking mental health services in the US, including linguistic and cultural barriers, low numbers of Latinx therapists, and decreased access to insurance. Additionally, there are fewer psychological measures available in Spanish than English. In this study, we focused on Spanish-language measures of intimate partner violence (IPV) because Latinx individuals are at elevated risk of experiencing IPV in their lifetime. Although there are a variety of well-validated English measures of IPV, many fewer measures exist in Spanish. This lack of validated Spanish measures of IPV could lead to disparities in access to IPV treatment for the growing number of Spanish speakers in the US.

To address this issue, we sought to locate as many Spanish-language measures of IPV as possible. We conducted a systematic review of Spanish measures of IPV based on a priori inclusion and exclusion criteria. We located additional measures through Google and contacting IPV agencies. Based on established best practices for achieving conceptually and psychometrically equivalent translations, we conceptualized “well translated” measures as being achieved through multiple phases of translation including at least an initial translation, at least one pre-testing phase or focus group, and subsequent alterations to initial translations. Independent raters evaluated the quality of psychometric properties of the measures based on presence of both reliability and validity evidence, number of validation studies, and quality of validity evidence.

As hypothesized, few measures reviewed met our criteria for adequate translation quality and validation. Lack of adequate validation of translations was common across the articles reviewed, and several articles reviewed had limited validation evidence in the English version prior to translation. Through this search, we found significant barriers to accessing Spanish measures. Few measures were readily available to the public, many measures were hidden within articles on other topics, and many agencies did not have Spanish measures that they routinely use. We conclude that these challenges contribute to disparities in care.  However, several translated measures met criteria for both translation and validation quality, and we provide a list of these recommended measures for use in future research and clinical work.

Identification of Spanish IPV measures that are comprehensible to Spanish speakers, psychometrically equivalent to English versions, and well-validated, can improve accessibility of appropriate mental health services to Spanish speakers. Additionally, this will allow researchers to more easily include Spanish speakers in future studies, thus addressing the current underrepresentation of Spanish speakers in research. Furthermore, we suggest researchers make their translated measures publicly available and make efforts to connect with clinicians in various fields to share their measures, along with the validation evidence. Finally, clinicians should select Spanish measures carefully to ensure they are culturally valid and well-translated. We provide a list of recommendations for such measures.