The Burn Specific Health Scale-Brief: measurement invariant across European countries

The Burn Specific Health Scale Brief (BSHS-B), which is the only multidimensional measure to evaluate burn-specific aspects of health status, has previously been validated in several languages across the world. However, the stability of the underlying construct was not cross-culturally evaluated. The current study reports on measurement invariance across two samples of Swedish- and Dutch- speaking patients with burns.

In a prospective study, 231 and 275 Swedish and Dutch-Belgian patients with burns, completed the BSHS-B at 9 or 12 months, respectively, after burn. Using a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis, measurement invariance across languages (Swedish and Dutch) was tested.

The results of the confirmatory factor analysis in the total sample revealed that the scale structure for the earlier reported three-factor structure and the original nine-factor structure was adequate. However, an eight-factor structure in which hand function and simple abilities were merged provided the best fit. This structure was used to test measurement invariance across the two language groups. The two-group outcomes testing measurement invariance across Swedish- and Dutch-speaking patients indicated a stable, configural invariance.

The BSHS-B seems to function uniformly across both language groups. The BSHS-B can be used to compare cross-cultural results in both countries.