Spanish Translation and Psychometric Validation of a Measure of Acculturative Stress among Latinx Immigrants in the USA.

Kritzia Merced,Paul B Perrin,Isis Garcia-Rodriguez,Oswaldo Moreno,Ria Grover,Chimdindu Ohayagha

doi:10.3390/ijerph19052808

Abstract

Background: In the United States, the Latinx community is growing at a faster rate than any other racial or ethnic minority group. Members of this community have been found to experience a number of acculturative stressors after immigrating, including xenophobia, racism, and discrimination. Although several scales have been created in recent years to measure acculturative stress in Spanish-speaking immigrants, they are long, do not have nuanced subscales, or have not been validated in an extremely diverse sample of Latinx immigrants. Objective: The purpose of the current study was to translate and psychometrically validate the Riverside Acculturative Stress Inventory (RASI) in a diverse sample of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Methods: A sample of 202 Latinx immigrants in the United States completed the RASI as well as measures of depression and anxiety. Results: An initial confirmatory factor analysis suggested that the overall subscale factor structure was not an ideal fit for the data. An exploratory factor analysis suggested the retention of four subscales, each with three items, forming a 12-item Spanish RASI short form. As indices of convergent validity, the RASI total score was positively associated with depression and anxiety. Conclusions: The findings from the study contribute to the literature a brief and valid assessment of acculturative stress in Spanish-speaking immigrants. The RASI Spanish short form holds promise to stimulate research on the unique adversities experienced by Latinx immigrants.

Highlights

Over the past few decades, immigration has been a prominent contributing factor to population growth in the United States
The 5-factor confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the 15 items from the Riverside Acculturative Stress Inventory (RASI) suggested poor fit across the fit indexes except for the IFI, CFI, and RMSEA, which were in the acceptable range (Table 2)
Due to the mostly poor fit indexes, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was run to determine whether a better factor solution might be operating among the 15 items of the Spanish version of the RASI

Summary

Introduction

Over the past few decades, immigration has been a prominent contributing factor to population growth in the United States. Public opinion regarding immigration is often a point of contention, and recent historical events regarding the immigration of Spanishspeaking groups have exacerbated the American political divide [1]. The population of racial/ethnic minority groups has been steadily increasing [2], with the most growth occurring in Spanish-speaking and Latinx populations, which makes up the largest racial/ethnic minority and immigrant group [3]. In 2018, the Spanish-speaking population accounted for approximately 18% (60 million) of the U.S population [4]. Reports indicate that 37 million Latinx individuals (34.8%) ages 5 and older speak Spanish at home, making. Spanish the most common non-English language in the United States [4,5]. It has been projected that Spanish-speaking and Latinx individuals will make up 27% of the nation’s population by 2060 [6]

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