Assessing Stress and Resilience in Cross-Cultural Mobility: Construction and Validation of the IERM-T

Cross-cultural mobility has intensified in recent decades, creating both challenges and opportunities for adaptation. Individuals navigating new cultural environments often experience stress related to language barriers, discrimination, and social integration, while simultaneously developing resilience and coping resources. To capture these dynamics, the Inventário de Estresse e Resiliência na Mobilidade Cross-cultural (IERM-T) was developed as a multidimensional instrument grounded in Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional model of stress and coping and informed by well-being theory. The IERM-T integrates five components: stressors, symptoms, coping strategies, emotions, and residential well-being. Validation analyses were conducted with 42 participants (107 evaluations), using R and Shiny for data collection and psychometric testing. Results demonstrated strong internal consistency (α = 0.938 for symptoms; α = 0.887 for stressors and emotions; α = 0.748 for well-being), coherent factorial structures distinguishing positive and negative emotions, and meaningful correlations between symptoms, resilience, and well-being (r = –0.846). These findings provide evidence of reliability and construct validity, supporting the IERM-T as a culturally sensitive tool for research and applied contexts. The inventory offers practical utility for identifying risk and protective factors in cross-cultural populations and contributes to advancing the field of cross-cultural psychology.