Dataset for: Translation and Validation of the Arabic International Adjustment Disorder Questionnaire among Patients with Physical Illness and their Families in Iraq

Adjustment disorder (AjD) is common among patients with physical conditions and their family members, albeit frequently neglected, leading to a high rate of transition to more severe mental conditions and a high risk of suicide. This neglect is particularly apparent in middle- and lower-income countries, including Iraq, where the lower mental health coverage means that most primary and secondary care centers might not have sufficient capacity to assess AjD.

Our study aims to address both issues by being the first Arabic validation of the IADQ, a self-administrated instrument for AjD, and the first validation on a clinical sample of patients with physical conditions and their family members. Robust statistical methods were utilized to address issues of data normality while assessing structural validity, and regression instead of correlation was used to assess concurrent validity to assess multicollinearity.

We found that the Arabic adaptation of the IADQ shows a valid 2-factor structure that corresponds to the ICD-11 diagnostic criteria. The 2-factor structure showed favorable reliability and concurrent validity and could be utilized in clinical settings. However, due to multicollinearity, we demonstrated that an equally reliable and valid total scale might be more appropriate for research. The two factors of preoccupation and failure to adapt were highly related but more distinct compared to previous validations, which provided supportive evidence for the hypothesis that these constructs are less ambiguous with more advanced forms of AjD present in clinical samples. We believe that these findings offer a significant contribution to the field and would be of interest to the readers of your journal.