Translation, cultural adaptation, and validation of the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 in Kinyarwanda for primary care in the United States

Background Depression and anxiety are significant health burdens that greatly impact the quality of life of refugees and migrants. In this study, we have translated and culturally adapted the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Screener (GAD-7) into Kinyarwanda and performed a validation study in a United States (US) primary care setting. Methods A committee of seven experts including psychiatric and family medicine providers, health researchers, and trained medical interpreters translated and culturally adapted the PHQ-9 and GAD-7, and incorporated feedback from cognitive interviews with bilingual participants. The translated instruments were then tested in a cross-sectional validation study. Analyses include internal consistency, discriminant validity, principal component analyses, and confirmatory factor analyses. Results Analyses of 119 responses indicated overall good internal consistency with Cronbach’s α of 0.85 (PHQ-9) and 0.92 (GAD-7). Both scales showed acceptable factor loadings between 0.44 and 0.90 in the principal component analyses and showed strong correlations with health-related quality of life and depression/anxiety symptoms measured with visual analog scales. Significantly higher scores for PHQ-9 and GAD-7 were shown among participants with known psychiatric conditions. Discussion PHQ-9 and GAD-7 demonstrated commendable applicability for Kinyarwanda-speaking patients in primary healthcare settings in the US. Our instruments can already be used in primary care settings and thus help to mitigate health disparities. Future research should further validate our tool against gold-standard diagnostics in larger, geographically diverse samples.