The SCL-90-R, a 90-item multidimensional self-report symptom inventory, was translated into Zulu. A multistage translation procedure, involving back-translation, decentering, and the committee approach was employed. The translated instrument was pretested on a group of Zulu farm workers (N = 12) and revisions made in order to improve its comprehensibility and acceptability to Zulu respondents. The concurrent validity of the Zulu SCL-90-R was investigated with samples of male psychiatric inpatients (N = 23) and nonpatients (N = 26). The Global Severity Index of the SCL-90-R demonstrated moderate diagnostic efficiency, with a sensitivity of .70 and a specificity of .77. These results suggest that the Zulu SCL-90-R may be a potentially useful psychometric instrument for the evaluation of psychological distress and screening for mental illness in Zulu-speakers.
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