INTRODUCTION: There has been a growing interest in the cross-cultural adaptation of instruments for assessment of anxiety, but studies involving anxiety specifically in the geriatric population is still unusual. Thus, there is a lack of instruments designed to comply with this population. Translation and cultural adaptation is the first step to providing comparisons between different cultural contexts. OBJECTIVE: Elaborate the semantic equivalence of the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory to Brazilian Portuguese. METHOD: The cross-cultural adaptation process consisted in four steps: two translations, two back- translations, both made by independent translators, the development of a synthetic version, and a pretest applied in a population sample. RESULTS: For each item of the instrument, we present the results of four steps. Throughout the process, any problems found could be solved by ensuring the quality of the instrument and its appropriateness to the population to which it is intended. DISCUSSION: The use of four-step method proved effective and safe in the process of semantic equivalence.
Anxiety; measure scale; translation
