Brazilian Portuguese cross-cultural adaptation of the Vulnerability to Abuse Screening Scale (VASS) for screening of violence against the elderly

The literature indicates a lack of available tools in Portuguese for detecting violence against the elderly. It thus seems appropriate to provide Portuguese-language versions of tools originating from other cultures. The Vulnerability to Abuse Screening Scale (VASS) contains 12 items that identify the risk of violence against the elderly. The current study aimed to conduct a Brazilian Portuguese cultural adaptation of VASS. The concept used to construct the instrument and its items proved appropriate for investigating the target phenomenon. The study showed good semantic equivalence between items in the back-translations and the original instrument, especially for T1 - R1. The judges opted to use 11 items from T1 for the short version. Operational equivalence was satisfactory. The results were generally acceptable. However, the instrument still failed to show sufficiently satisfactory results to confirm the feasibility of its use. In conclusion, the instrument needs to be revised and replicated to further verify its validity.

Domestic Violence; Elder Abuse; Aged; Questionnaires