Background: The Cardiac Depression Scale (CDS) has been designed to measure depressive symptoms in patients with heart disease. There is no Arabic version of the CDS. We translated and validated the CDS in an Arabic sample of patients with heart disease. Methods: Forward and back translation of the CDS was followed by assessment of cultural relevance and content validity. The Arabic version of the CDS (A-CDS) and the Arabic version of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (A-HADS) were then administered to 260 Arab in-patients with heart disease from 18 Arabic countries. Construct validity was assessed using exploratory factor analysis with polychoric correlations. Internal consistency was assessed using ordinal reliability alpha and item-to-factor polychoric correlations. Concurrent validity was assessed using Pearson's correlation coefficient between the A-CDS and the depression subscale of the A-HADS (A-HADS-D).Results: Cultural relevance and content validity of the A-CDS were satisfactory. Exploratory factor analysis revealed three robust factors, without cross-loadings, that formed a single dimension. Internal consistency was high (ordinal reliability alpha for the total scale and the three factors were .94, .91, .86, and .87, respectively; item-to-factor correlations ranged from .77 to .91). Concurrent validity was high (r = .72). The A-CDS demonstrated a closer to normal distribution of scores than the A-HADS-D. Limitations: Sensitivity and specificity of the A-CDS were not objectively assessed. Conclusions: The A-CDS appears to be a valid and reliable instrument to measure depressive symptoms in a representative sample of Arab in-patients with heart disease.Keywords: Arabic; Cardiac Depression Scale; cultural relevance; depression; heart disease; scale validation Highlights• We translated and validated the Cardiac Depression Scale to Arabic.• Cultural relevance and content validity were satisfactory.• A stable, parsimonious, and meaningful three-factor model was created.• Internal consistency and concurrent validity were high.• The translated scale appears to be a valid and reliable instrument.

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