Psychometric Validation of the Brazilian Portuguese Version of the Derriford Appearance Scale-24 (DAS-24) for People Living with HIV/AIDS

The changes in appearance of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) interferes with how people around them react to their body, how social interactions take place, and how each person perceives and accepts their body. The definition of itself can be severely challenged when the body changes as a result of illness and the person does not look healthier anymore. People living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) are an especially vulnerable group when it comes to “distress” and the psychosocial impact of appearance, yet the assessment of body image changes in these people was subjective in Brazil. The aim of this paper was to assess the psychometric properties of the Brazilian version of Derriford Appearance Scale 24 (DAS-24) for a sample of Brazilians living with HIV/AIDS. A sample of 400 patients were recruited from an HIV/AIDS ambulatory, aged between 18 and 78 years, of both sexes. The psychometric properties of DAS-24 were investigated while using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), with unweighted least square estimation and listwise deletion for missing data. The adjustment of three structural models previously established for DAS-24 (single-factor, two-factor, and three-factor) was investigated. Evidences of construct validity—convergent and discriminant—and internal consistency—Cronbach’s alpha and construct reliability—were also generated for the measure model. The results showed that the one-factor model had the best adjustment, after eliminating items 8, 17, and 20, and accepting the covariance of errors between items 4 and 10; 9 and 23; 11 and 14; and, 14 and 22. Additionally, validity and reliability evidence were satisfactory for the model. The Brazilian Portuguese version of DAS-24 seems to be a psychometrically sound scale for measuring body image distress for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA).