Psychometric Assessment of Measures of Psychological Symptoms, Functional Status, Life Events, and Context for Low Income Hispanic Patients in a Primary Care Setting

Abstract

This study assessed the psychometric properties of a set of nine commonly used lists in an English-speaking Hispanic sample taken from a primary care setting. These were the General Health Questionnaire-12, the Anxiety, Depression, and Somatization scales from the SCL-90, the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36, the Holmes and Rahe Family Life Changes, abbreviated versions of the Daily Hassles and Uplifts, the Herth Hope Index, Duke Social Support and Stress scales, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, and Marlowe-Crowne Brief Social Desirability Scale. 68 adult patients completed the measures via structured interview. Internal consistency was measured using Cronbach alpha and the Kuder-Richardson-20. Construct validity was assessed using Pearson correlations among sets of scores. Internal consistencies were good-to-excellent for all measures except for the Duke Social Support and Stress scales (Stress scale), and the Brief Social Desirability Scale. Construct validity was suggested for all except the Mental Health and Energy/Fatigue scales of the Short Form-36. Further study is needed to verify these results in other Hispanic populations and to address other forms of reliability and validity.