Transcultural adaptation of the Refugee Health Screener - 15 to Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract The forced migration process exposes the individual to different situations of vulnerability before, during and after arrival in the country of destination. In this context, the prevalence of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder is double when compared to the non-refugee population. Brazil receives approximately 30,000 refugee requests annually, but it lacks mental health screening instruments adapted for this public. Thus, the objective of this research was to perform the translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the Refugee Health Screener - 15 (RHS-15) instrument from Spanish to Brazilian Portuguese. The aim was to create a bilingual instrument that would enable Brazilian professionals to assist Hispanic refugee populations in Brazil. This study involved the stages of translation and back-translation, evaluation by expert judges and the target audience. Statistical analysis was based on the assessment of agreement between translations and the measurement of the reliability of the results by the kappa coefficient. The RHS-15 was adapted to Brazilian Portuguese, giving rise to the Escala de Saúde para Refugiados - 15, which presents evidence of validity based on indicators of semantic and conceptual equivalence.