# Evaluation of the validity and reliability of the Persian version of the refugee post-migration stress scale

## TL;DR

This study evaluates a Persian version of a stress scale for refugees, confirming it is a reliable and valid tool for measuring post-migration stress.

## Contribution

The study provides a validated Persian version of the Refugee Post-migration Stress Scale for use with Persian-speaking refugees.

## Key findings

- The Persian RPMS showed good fit in confirmatory factor analysis with RMSEA of 0.08 and CFI of 0.95.
- Convergent validity was confirmed with significant correlations (r = 0.33 with HSCL-25 and r = -0.30 with WHO-5).
- Cronbach’s alpha of 0.88 indicates strong internal consistency.

## Abstract

Refugees usually face stressful events both in the destination country and during migration. To date, no tool has been designed to reflect the post-migration stress of Persian-speaking refugees on the basis of their current life conditions. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the psychometric characteristics of the Persian version of the Refugee Post-migration Stress Scale (RPMS).

This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2022 with 355 Iranian refugees in Turkey. The original RPMS includes 21 items and 7 subscales. First, the original version of the tool was translated into Farsi via the standard forward-backward method. The instrument’s validity was checked through face validity, content validity, and construct validity via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and convergent validity with the World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5) and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist 25 (HSCL-25(. Reliability was evaluated via the internal consistency method (Cronbach’s alpha). SPSS version 16 and LISREL version 8.8 software packages were used for data analysis.

Face validity and content validity were confirmed by refugees and experts with slight changes. CFA revealed that the proposed 7-subscale model of the original RPMS has a good fit (RMSEA: 0.08, NFI: 0.92; CFI: 0.95; IFI: 0.95; GFI 0.86; SRMR: 0.06). The convergent validity results also showed that the studied instrument has a suitable structure. Convergent validity was confirmed via the Pearson correlation results between the RPMS and two instruments: the HSCL-25 (p < 0.001, r = 0.33) and the WHO-5 (p < 0.001, r= -0.30). Additionally, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.88.

According to the psychometric results of the tool in the Persian-speaking refugee population, the tool is appropriate for measuring post-migration stress in refugees. Another advantage of this tool is its brevity and shortness.