THE TALBIEH BRIEF DISTRESS INVENTORY - A BRIEF INSTRUMENT TO MEASURE PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS AMONG IMMIGRANTS

The purpose of this study was to develop and test the Talbieh Brief Di stress Inventory (TBDI), a 24-item self-report questionnaire that meas ures psychological distress among immigrants. The TBDI combines items from the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) and the Psychiatric Epidemiolog y Research Interview Demoralization Scale (PERI-D). It includes a glob al score and six scales (obsessiveness, hostility, sensitiveness, depr ession, anxiety, and paranoid ideation). A convenience sample of 966 r ecent immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union were asked to complete a Russian-language version of the BSI and PERI-D as part of a study on immigrants' psychological adjustment. The TBDI is a combinat ion of 13 items from the BSI and 11 items from the PERI-D. Items for i nclusion were based on results of a separate factor analysis for the B SI and PERI-D and removal of repetitive items, We compared the total s core with the total PERI-D and BSI and developed gender-specific cutof f points of caseness for the TBDI by comparison to known PERI-D and BS I cutoff points. We also checked for reliability using Cronbach's alph a. The TBDI correlated highly with the PERI-D (r = .93) and with the B SI (r = .82). Reliability of the scales and the overall instrument ran ged from Cronbach's alpha of .60 to .89. TBDI caseness cutoff points w ere in close agreement with the BSI and PERI-D as reflected by kappa s cores that ranged from .65 to .79, The TBDI is a promising instrument for screening populations for psychological distress and symptomatolog y. It is available in English, Hebrew, and Russian. Copyright (C) 1995 by W.B. Saunders Company