HIV infection can be associated with neurobehavioral deficits that range in severity from subtle to marked. We and others have documented in English-speaking HIV+ individuals that these deficits, detected with traditional neuropsychological measures, are related to performance on laboratory measures of everyday functioning, such as cooking, financial management, medication management, vocational functioning, and driving abilities. We propose to extend this work to accommodate the growing numbers of HIV+ Hispanics who are primarily Spanish speaking, and for whom assessment measures and research attention remain largely undeveloped. To this end, we have adapted and translated most components of the functional battery of tests that was utilized in the project """"""""Functional Impact of Neurobehavioral Impairments in HIV,"""""""" taking care to include only instruments that are culturally relevant and likely to be ecologically valid for this population. The primary objective of the proposed project is to establish the utility of this functional battery for measuring HIV-related functional impairments in Spanish speakers. Specifically, we plan to (1) establish equivalency between our existing English language functional battery and a newly translated Spanish language version, (2) establish the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the Spanish language functional impact battery, and (3) begin to establish the validity of the battery by demonstrating relationships in HIV+ Spanish speakers between laboratory functional assessments and both neuropsychological status and """"""""real world"""""""" functioning.
