Psychometric characteristics of the Dutch Personality Assessment Scale in Papiamento-speaking prisoners

Background

Although personality disorders are common among offenders, there is no validated translated questionnaire for the assessment of personality disorders in Papiamento, a Portuguese-Spanish influenced creole language, which is widely spoken on the former Dutch Antilles.

Aim

To evaluate the Dutch Personality Scale as translated into Papiamento in the prison of Bonaire.

Methods

The Dutch Personality Assessment Scale was translated into Papiamento by two independent experts and retranslated back into Dutch by two other fully bilingual and independent experts. Twenty-four Papiamento-speaking prisoners agreed to participate in the study.

Results

There was good agreement on translation of the assessment items. The prisoner participants reported no difficulties in answering the questions. The internal consistency was acceptable for the seven subscales except for ‘egoism’ (α 0.21) and very good for ‘inadequacy’ and ‘social inadequacy’ (0.88 and 0.82 respectively). The scores of neuroticism, rigidity, egoism and dominance were higher than in the general Dutch population.

Conclusion

Translation of the Dutch Personality Scale into the creole language Papiamento proved feasible. The cross-cultural translation and validation of personality assessment scales may be helpful in assessment of personality disorders in offenders speaking creole languages.