The German Version of the Multidimensional Acculturative Stress Inventory (MASI) for Turkish-Origin Immigrants

Abstract

Abstract. The Multidimensional Acculturative Stress Inventory (MASI) is an established measure of acculturative stress for people of Mexican origin living in the USA that has been associated with mental health outcomes in this population. We translated the MASI into German and adapted it for use with Turkish-origin immigrants in Germany. The MASI includes filter questions asking if a potentially stressful event had actually occurred before reporting the stress appraisal of these situations. Measurement invariance testing has become a standard practice to evaluate questionnaire translations, however, measurement invariance of filter questions has been scarcely studied. In Study 1, we evaluated measurement invariance of the filter questions between a German-based Turkish sample ( N = 233) and the Mexican-origin sample from the original study ( N = 174) and could show partial strong factorial invariance for three of the four factors. In Study 2, a validation study, relations between the German MASI scores and measures of acculturation and stress indicated discriminant validity. This study contributes to research on measurement invariance of filter questions, thereby providing a measure of acculturative stress that can be used in future research to understand the etiology of health disparities in Turkish-origin immigrants in Germany.