Introduction: The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) is a clinical assessment tool to evaluate the initial stroke-related neurological deficits. Its language specific items have been developed to be used with the native English-speaking stroke clients. Healthcare providers in the Arabic world can only conduct the motor-specific components to their native Arabic-speaking clients. Aims: This study aimed to establish the Arabic version of the NIHSS to allow healthcare providers to obtain a full assessment of the native Arabicspeaking stroke sufferers on both motor and language items and to validate this Arabic version. Methods: Study was conducted into two phases. The first step included adapting the whole NIHSS scale and specifically conceptually translating the language-specific items to the Arabic language. The NIHSS-A followed the same format and rules when adapting the new language-specific items as set by the original NIHSS team. The original NIHSS-attached picture was also replaced by an Arabic culturally-accepted picture. The second step was to validate the NIHSS-A and to establish its psychometric properties: Criterion validity, inter and intrarater validity. Results: A full description of the cross cultural adaptation process was detailed, including justification and challenges. After conducting the validation phase of the study, NIHSS-A was revealed to be both valid and reliable tool as an initial assessment of stroke severity among Arabicspeaking stroke patients. Conclusion: The new adapted NIHSS-A will allow healthcare providers in the Arab World to obtain a full assessment of the native Arabic-speaking stroke sufferers on both motor and language items.

Nazzal, M., et al., Multidisciplinary clinical rehabilitation cross-cultural adaptation of the nihss into the arabic language: A validation study of the nihss-a. International Journal of Stroke, 2014. 9: p. 235-236.

https://insights.ovid.com/international-stroke/ijstr/2014/10/003/multidisciplinary-clinical-rehabilitation-cross/668/01253236