Pilot study of a translation and cultural adaptation of the anger disorders scale: short version

Abstract

Psychology is a growing field in the Dominican Republic. Recent years have seen an influx of both local and foreign trained psychologists who have founded psychological clinics and begun research programs at various universities. The growth of the field is hindered by a lack of psychological tests in Spanish. In addition, most psychological tests have not been validated with Dominican populations which may create bias at the time of diagnosis. As a first step in alleviating this problem, we conducted the first Spanish translation of the Anger Disorders Scale (ADS) and conducted a validation study. Results show that the instrument has adequate psychometric properties with a Cronbach’s Alpha value of .79 and statistically significant convergent validity of r = .50 with the State Trait Anger Inventory – II (STAXI-2). Additional tests showed that our sample was adequate for a factor analysis and we proceeded to conduct an exploratory factor analysis with a varimax rotation. Results show a 6 factor structure that explained over 60% of the variance. This first study indicates that the ADS can be used to diagnose and evaluate anger related dysfunctions in Dominican patients.