Cultural Adaptation and Validation of the Ostomy Adjustment Inventory-23 for Brazil

The Ostomy Adjustment Inventory-23 (OAI-23) was developed in English to measure the social and psychological adaptation of individuals who underwent ostomy surgeries.

The aim of the current study was to culturally adapt and test the measurement properties of a Brazilian Portuguese adapted version of the OAI-23.

The original version of the OAI-23 was composed of 23 questions distributed into the following 4 factors: acceptance, anxiety/preoccupation, social engagement, and anger. The OAI-23 was translated into Portuguese, reviewed by a committee of expert reviewers, pretested on a focus group, and back-translated. Using convenience sampling methods, patients who were treated at specialized health centers located in different parts of Brazil were invited to complete a demographic and health history questionnaire, the Janis and Field Self-Esteem Scale, and the adapted version of OAI-23 to assess its reliability, convergent construct validity, and discriminant construct validity.

A total of 191 patients with a mean age of 58.9 years (SD = 14.7) (74.1% with colostomies, 19.6% with ileostomies, and 6.3% with urostomies) participated in the study. The Brazilian Portuguese adapted version of the OAI-23 had a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.846 and an intra-class correlation coefficient of 0.903 (P < .001). Significant correlations between OAI-23 scores and self-esteem scale scores confirmed the convergent construct validity, and the instrument was able to discriminate patients' adjustment according to age.

The adapted version of the OAI-23 proved to be reliable and valid for use in Brazil; this represents the first instrument capable of assessing psychosocial adaptation of patients with stomas in that country.