The Content Validity of the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI)

The present study investigates content validity of the open-ended items in Cultural Formulation Interview in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5).

After translating into Persian and assessing the content validity of the items and their modification by psychiatrists, the questionnaire was translated back into English by two translators and then retranslated into Persian. The final Persian version and its back-translation were submitted for approval to the DSM-5 design workshop in the United States. After obtaining the group's approval on the back-translation and permission to use the questionnaire, samples were distributed among panel members and the content validity of the questionnaire was thus examined.

The content validity index (CVI) of cultural formulation interview was 0.51 and all the items were acceptable although some, especially those on the cultural perception of the context and the cultural factors affecting current help-seeking, had lower content validity ratios (CVR).

The cultural formulation interview seems to have an overall acceptable content validity although it is weak and thus needs further studies in relation to the two domains of the cultural perception of the context and the cultural factors affecting help-seeking in the Iranian population.