In the international literature, near-death experiences are often measured by The Near-Death Experience Scale (NDE), developed by Bruce Greyson in 1983. The aim of this study is to verify the existence of the semantic equivalence between the original version (in English) and the translated version to Brazilian Portuguese, evaluating both the general and the referential meaning. The semantic evaluation was conducted according to the several steps. Thereafter, a pre-testing was performed in six post Intensive Care Unit patients of a University Hospital. The evaluations of two psychologists and two psychiatrists have found existence of semantic equivalence between the Brazilian and the original version of the scale. The pre-test applied on the target population proved the items were intelligible. Our findings suggest that the Brazilian version of the NDE might be used in the investigation of near-death experience in Brazilian culture.
Near-Death Experience (NDE); Semantic Equivalence; Scale
