Validation of the dialectal Arabic version of Barratt's impulsivity scale, the BIS-11

Impulsivity is a symptom of several disorders such as personality disorder, bipolar disorder, suicidal behaviour, substance use disorders, schizophrenia...Forensic psychiatry is particularly concerned with impulsivity. It increases the risk of violence among clinical populations and figures in various instruments such as the HCR-20, the VRAG and the PCL-R to assess violence risk. It is one of many dimensions that can lead to aggressive behaviour among psychiatric patients. The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS), in its 11th version, is a 30-item self-report instrument that helps assessing impulsivity trait among normal and clinical populations. The BIS is the most commonly administered self-assessment of impulsiveness. As of March 2009, there have been 551 citations of the BIS-11 among many publications. The purpose of the present study is to examine the psychometric properties of the Arabic translation of the BIS-11th version in a sample of the general population and to identify an eventual correlation between impulsivity and socio-demographic characteristics. This is a prospective study conducted over a five-month period, from June to October 2010, and including 134 persons from the general population having provided their informed consent. The dialectal Arabic version was carried out by translation from English to dialectal Arabic followed by a back translation to English. Some questions were modified to be understood by a population with low education. After giving their verbal informed consent, the participants filled in the Arabic version of the BIS-11. For the illiterate, responses and quotations were performed by the interviewer. The persons were also asked to fill in socio-demographic data. Cronbach's coefficient was calculated, and then we assessed impulsivity prevalence and a correlation between demographic features and impulsivity scores. For the analyses, the statistical software SPSS 11 was used. The sex ratio is 1.02. Most of the interviewed persons were 20 to 49 years old. Around 25.4% of the sample were analphabets, 32.1% had primary education, 29.1% had secondary education and 13.4% were undergraduates. The Cronbach's alpha was respectively 0.66 for attention, 0.72 for motor impulsivity, 0.61 for lack of planning and 0.78 for total impulsivity. Factor analysis identified three factors explaining the total variance of 32.6%. Impulsivity prevalence was 9%. We did not find significant correlation between demographic features and impulsivity s