Adaptation and Validation of the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire to Portuguese (SSQp) Based on Immersive Virtual Reality Exposure

Cybersickness refers to the negative symptoms caused by exposure to a Virtual Reality (VR) experience. The literature is consensual that cybersickness is a key factor in an experience, as the non-existence of cybersickness provides an optimal virtual experience. Thus, it is of utmost importance to evaluate cybersickness when assessing VR applications to understand the impact of this factor on the user experience and, ultimately, on the VR application viability. However, there is a lack of Portuguese instruments to evaluate this variable. To tackle this, this aimed to translate and validate the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) to Portuguese so it can be used with the Portuguese population and maintain its psychometric properties. The new instrument was validated using a sample of 603 Portuguese subjects aged between 16 and 79. Based on the observed results, the obtained theoretical model shows that the Portuguese version of the SSQ is valid for properly evaluating cybersickness in VR experiences with Portuguese samples.