Spanish adaptation of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11)

Background: The 11th version of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) is widely used to measure impulsiveness, an important behavioural trait. Unfortunately, there is no Spanish version of this instrument. Method: The adaptation process included: translation, back-translation, review of both versions and administration of the resulting instrument to a bilingual sample from the target population. This process permitted the assessment of the equivalence between the English and Spanish version of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale in three stages: Linguistic equivalence, Conceptual equivalence and Scale equivalence. Results: The most important aspects of the adaptation: Linguistic equivalence, Conceptual and Scale equivalence are adequate in this Spanish version of the BIS-11. Conclusion: This adaptation of the BIS-11 is ready to be used on Spanish speaking populations.