Assessing bilingual and monolingual Latino students with translations of the MMPI-2: Initial data.

Abstract

This article presents the results of 2 studies conducted with Spanish versions of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) with Latino students. Study 1 compared the results of 2 administrations of the MMPI-2, one in English and the other in Spanish. Study 2 compared the results of administrations of 2 Spanish versions of the MMPI-2, the official Mexican adaptation and the Version Hispana. In both cases, scale score differences were not found. Comparability, as operationally defined by test-retest reliability, was found to be higher for the group that was administered the English and Spanish versions than the group administered the 2 Spanish versions. Overall, the results were found to suggest correspondence. Yet, the authors warn against concluding "perfect" correspondence because other key groups need to be studied, including psychiatric patients and persons from the Latino community. Also, the determination of linguistic equivalence needs further refinement.

Effects of Ethnicity on Psychotropic Medications Adherence

“…(1) Instruments that are developed with Caucasians are sometimes poorly understood when used with Hispanics and African-Americans (Randolph, Escobar, Paz, & Forsythe, 1985;Gillis, Trollip, et al, 1987;Azocar, Arean, Mirandy, & Munoz, 2001), in part because emotional expression may vary across cultures (Kleinman, 1980;Katon, Kleinman, & Rosen, 1982;Escobar, Burnan, Karno, Forsythe, Landsverk, & Golding, 1986;Good & Good 1986;Bravo, Woodbury-Fariñ a, Caniñ o, & Rubio-Stipec, 1993;Garcia-Peltoniemi & Azan-Chaviano, 1993;Velasquez, Chavira, Karle, Callahan, Garcia, & Castellanos, 2000;Cortes, 2002;Barrio et al, 2003). However, we used established translations of standard instruments and established methods to translate those that had not previously been translated.…”

Testing and Assessment Issues With Spanish‐English Bilingual Latinos

“…Translation Numerous translation techniques and practices have been used for the adaptation of English tests into Spanish forms. The most salient of these include (a) the use of an initial pool of bilingual individuals for the purpose of establishing the linguistic equivalence of the Spanish version (Norris & Perilla, 1996); (b) the back-translation technique to maintain the true meaning of each item (Dimmit, 1995); (c) decentering, an adaptation of the back-translation technique that entails submitting the original version of an assessment tool to a translator (Marín & Marín, 1991); and (d) an examination of which translation is most appropriate where numerous regional translations exist (Velasquez et al, 2000). Regardless of the translation techniques used, when using translated tests, it is important to remember that tools still contain items that may be misinterpreted due to the translation process itself and geographic variations in the Spanish language.…”

MMPI-2 Profiles of Colombian, Mexican, and Venezuelan University Students

“…MMPI-2 answer sheets were computer scored. This might suggest an approach, often taken by Latinos in both the USA and Latin America, that reflects tendencies toward caution in initially presenting oneself to others, a lunitation on the type of information to be self-disclosed to others, and the need to appear socially competent (Velasquez, et al, 2000). Basic va-Lidlty and chical scales were extracted for analyses.…”