Simultaneous Development of a Multidimensional Fatalism Measure in English and Spanish

Fatalism has been shown to predict several health behaviors, but researchers often find inconsistent results for the same behaviors across studies. This may be partially attributable to the diversity of fatalism measures that have been used in previous studies. A review of the literature revealed 51 different scales, all purported to measure fatalism, but often with heterogeneous content (Esparza 2005). A study done by Esparza (2005) retrieved 29 scales, including the most frequently used scales, and performed an exploratory factor analysis, obtaining as a result five factors: fatalism, helplessness, internality, luck, and divine control. The purpose of this study was to develop a multidimensional fatalism scale based on the previous findings by Esparza (2005). This scale was developed simultaneously in English and Spanish in order to linguistically “decenter” item content. The factor structure was cross-validated and measurement invariance was assessed across language versions. According to the measurement invariance analysis, this test is invariant across English and Spanish in its factor structure, loadings, variances, and covariances. This study results suggest that this scale may be used interchangeably in both English and Spanish.