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Increasing the representation of Spanish-speaking study participants requires development and dissemination of reliable and valid translated scales. In the current study the construct validity was assessed of the Spanish version of the Crisis in Family Systems--Revised, a measure of contemporary life stressors, with a convenience sample of 377 parents interviewed in a study of childhood asthma, although over half of the respondents did not have children with asthma. Most respondents were foreign-born women between 20 to 60 years old (M = 35, SD = 7). 52% had not completed high school or its equivalent, and 55% reported a household income of $15,000 or less. For a subsample of 25 respondents test-retest reliability was .86 over 2 wk. Reporting more life stressors was associated with greater depressive symptomatology, poorer physical and mental health function, and lower household income. These relationships support the construct validity of the test in Spanish. This study provided strong evidence that this version is a valid and reliable measure of life stressors for a Spanish-speaking population living in the United States.

The objectives of this study were to establish the validity of the Crisis in Family Systems-Revised, a recently developed measure of contemporary life stressors, using the same validation technique as in the original validation and to provide further evidence of construct validity by assessing its relationship to socioeconomic status and residential location. We conducted 124 in-person interviews with parents in three outpatient pediatric asthma clinics affiliated with an academic medical center. The design was cross-sectional and correlational. Total count of life stressors accounted for 19% of the variance in scores on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression. Respondents using Medicaid and living in the city experienced more objective stressors, but the proportions of stressors rated as negative or positive (Valence), and ongoing (Chronicity) were fairly constant across subsamples, as was the Difficulty rating. Psychologists and health and mental health services researchers are in need of constructs relevant to contemporary society and its issues and tools to measure these constructs. Life stressors appears to be such a construct and the Crisis in Family Systems-Revised a measure with considerable utility.