A SPANISH TRANSLATION AND VALIDATION OF THE DAILY STRESS INVENTORY AND A COMPARISON OF THE LEVEL OF STRESS EXPERIENCED BY 3 CULTURALLY DISTINCT HISPANIC GROUPS

Two studies were conducted, the first to establish a valid Spanish ver sion of the Daily Stress Inventory (DSI). A second study was conducted using the bilingual version of the DSI to assess differences in the l evel of stress experienced by three selected Hispanic groups: (a) very Hispanic/Hispanic-oriented bicultural, (b) ''true'' bicultural, and ( c) Anglo-oriented bicultural/very Anglicized as determined by the adap ted version of the Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans (A RSMA). It was expected that stress levels would be highest for the lea st acculurated group. The results of the first study indicate that the Bilingual DSI scores are highly correlated with the scores of the ori ginal DSI when both instruments are responded to simultaneously by ful ly bilingual individuals. In Study 2, the initial data analyses showed no difference in the level of stress reported by Hispanics at differe nt levels of acculturation as measured by the ARSMA. When a median-spl it method was employed, differences in the DSI I/E measures between th e two groups were significant, suggesting that acculturation level may be related to stress level.