ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND
Recent studies showed that emotional intelligence (EI) could improve medical education and professional practice. There were no instruments validated for Brazilian Portuguese to evaluate EI level.
OBJECTIVE
To translate and cross-culturally adapt the Schutte Self Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT) for Brazilian Portuguese.
METHODS
The translation and cross-cultural adaptation was performed in six steps: translation, synthesis, back translation, expert committee review, pretesting and elaboration of the final version. A Brazilian psychologist and an English Teacher, both fluent in English, performed the translations from English to Portuguese. Two native English speakers who were not familiar with the questionnaire performed the back translations. The authors composed the expert committee review. The internal consistency and reliability of the final version was tested by Cronbach’s alpha (Ca). Values of ≥ 0.70 were considered acceptable. The pretesting was done with medical students and resident doctors, who answered the test and rewrote the sentences in their own words.
RESULTS
The Portuguese SSEIT translated version had 100% semantic and idiomatic equivalence. The comparison between the back translated versions and the original showed slight semantic discrepancies in four questions, therefore the texts were adjusted. The pretesting version was applied to 41 volunteers, after signing an Informed Consent Form. Seven questionnaires were eliminated as they were not filled out properly. Analyses of the rewritten sentences showed slight discrepancies in the same four questions of the back translations, and were again adjusted. The Ca was 0.786 for the whole questionnaire and ranged from 0.763 to 0.798 between the questions.
CONCLUSION
The translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the SSEIT for Brazilian Portuguese was a success, and showed acceptable internal consistency and reliability according to Cronbach’s alpha test.
–Teaching; –Emotional Intelligence; –Validation Studies; –Translating