The Development and Standardization of a Spanish Version of the Washington Psychosocial Seizure Inventory

The Washington Psychosocial Seizure Inventory (WPSI) was translated from English into Spanish, reviewed by a bilingual panel, and then standardized on 107 Spanish-speakers and 45 bilinguals in Miami, Florida. The 152 subjects were active clients of the Epilepsy Foundation of South Florida. Subjects were assigned to one of three treatment groups: Monolingual (Spanish WPSI only), Bilingual (Spanish WPSI first), or Bilingual (English WPSI first). All three groups were given two administrations of the WPSI at least 30 days apart. Resulting data were submitted to measures of split-half reliability, test-retest reliability, and concurrent validity. The psychosocial scales were found to be internally consistent and showed stability across administrations with a marked similarity between the Spanish and English forms. The concurrent validity of the Spanish scales was established at the 0.01 level of significance or better. It was concluded that the Spanish WPSI was statistically comparable to the original English language version, thus establishing a basis for its usage in the psychological assessment of Spanish-speaking epileptics throughout the world.