Ninth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

Arabic-speaking populations suffer from unique stressors including but not limited to acculturation, making it more crucial than ever to have a validated tool to measure stress in this population. The Stress Overload Scale (SOS), which measures stress perceived as overwhelming relative to one’s resources, has proven effective in predicting illness in English-speaking populations; but no Arabic version of the 30-item SOS yet exists. The current study aimed to construct an Arabic SOS, and determine if it maintains its validity in native Arabic speakers in the United States. The 30-item SOS was translated into Arabic using the Cross-Cultural Adaptation method, including back translation. The sample consisted of 90 native Arabic speakers, aged 18 years and over from a large public university, who completed the measures online. The study demonstrated that the Arabic SOS generally paralleled the original version in terms of a two-factor structure (Personal Vulnerability and Event Load) and reliability. The Arabic SOS also demonstrated construct and criterion validity by showing significant positive correlations with the Arabic Perceived Stress Scale and the Patient-Health Questionnaire-15, respectively. Limitations of this study and suggestions for future validation in different Arabic-speaking samples and settings are discussed. It is concluded that the Arabic SOS may offer a better tool for evaluating pathogenic stress in Arabic-speaking populations than current existing measures.