An Arabic version of Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale - Children and Adolescents (BDEFS-CA): translation and validation study

Abstract

Background While executive dysfunctions are present abundantly in children with psychiatric and developmental disorders, unfortunately, it is significantly underdiagnosed in Arab countries due to the lack of Arabic executive functions diagnostic scales. To our knowledge, there is no available Arabic rating scale for assessing executive functions in children and adolescents till this moment except for BRIEF-2 which excluded anyone with a mental, learning, developmental, or medical disorder constituting unfortunately 25% of the general population. Our paper describes the translation and validation of an Arabic version of the Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale - Children and Adolescents (BDEFS-CA) (long form). The translation was done using the forward-backward method and the study population for validation included 60 parents of children of age 6–13 years. Results Reliability of the scale domains was evident in Arabic showing high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha from 0.93 to 0.97 scores over the five domains). These values were close to the original English version which is 0.95 to 0.97. Conclusion The reliability of the Arabic version of BDEFS-CA was adequate making it a valuable instrument for executive function assessment in Arabic children and adolescents.