Cultural adaptation in measuring common client characteristics with an urban Mainland Chinese sample

This study aimed to develop a culturally adapted version of the Systematic Treatment Selection-Innerlife (STS) in China.

A total of 300 nonclinical participants collected from Mainland China and 240 nonclinical US participants were drawn from archival data. A Chinese version of the STS was developed, using translation and back-translation procedures. After confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the original STS sub scales failed on both samples, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was then used to access whether a simple structure would emerge on these STS treatment items. Parallel analysis and minimum average partial were used to determine the number of factor to retain.

Three cross-cultural factors were found in this study, Internalized Distress, Externalized Distress and interpersonal relations.

This supported that regardless of whether one is in presumably different cultural contexts of the USA or China, psychological distress is expressed in a few basic channels of internalized distress, externalized distress, and interpersonal relations, from which different manifestations in different culture were also discussed.