Validation of The Arabic Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale

Background Emotional awareness is a cognitive skill that has gained recognition as being important for psychological and physical health. It is measured with the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS), which is a 20-item written performance measure in which an individual is asked to write about how they and another person would feel in a series of hypothetical scenarios. The LEAS has been translated and validated in 19 languages. The aim of the current paper is to describe the translation and validation of the LEAS in Arabic (LEAS-Arb).

To achieve our goal, we recruited 134 Arabic-speaking adults ages18 and above to complete the LEAS in Arabic, along with additional self-report and performance measures that have been used in previous LEAS validation studies.

Our findings support the reliability and validity of the Arabic translation of the LEAS originally created in English. The interrater reliability between the two scorers for the first ten study participants was remarkably high, Cronbach’s α =0.951 for self, 0.997 for other, and 0.962 for total LEAS scores. Internal consistency of the 20 LEAS items alpha scores for LEAS-Arb were self Cronbach’s α =.81, other α =.96, and total α =.86.

This study can facilitate the use of LEAS-Arb in varied settings across different Arabic speaking populations, which will allow better understanding of awareness of emotion in the Arab world and cross-culturally. This easily accessible measure can be used in clinical and research settings. Further research is needed to examine cross-cultural differences in emotional awareness as a function of culture and language. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Funding Statement The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: We have ethics approval from the University of Haifa, faculty of social welfare and health sciences ethics committee. Each participant signed written informed consent. The statement of approval from this ethics committee is as follows: "I hereby confirm that the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences approved the performance of the study entitled: "Hebrew and Arabic validation of the Levels of Emotion Awareness Scale (LEAS)". In our opinion, the proposed research complies with current university and international standards for ethical research practice and we have approved it as such. The primary responsibility for ethical practice in research remains with the investigators. This approval is relevant until December 29, 2020. " I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes Data Availability Data from this study contain human research participant data that is potentially sensitive due to the ethnicity of our participants and the nature of the data collected. Deidentified data can be obtained through the ethics committee of the faculty of social welfare and health sciences at the University of Haifa, at ethics-health{at}univ.haifa.ac.il. List of abbreviations - Abbreviation - Definition - MSS - Mental State Stories - LEAS - Levels of Emotional Awareness scale - LEAS-Arb - Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale in Arabic - LEAS-C - Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale for Children - PANAS - The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule - PAT - Perception of Affect Task - TAS - The Toronto Alexithymia Scale