Social disadvantage can result in healthcare gaps and primary care may be a suitable healthcare context to identify unmet social needs. A variety of screening tools exists but none of them is consolidated in clinical practice. After reviewing the available instruments, we conducted a rigorous translation and trans-cultural adaptation into Italian language of the EveryONE social need screening tool questionnaire of the American Academy of Family Physicians. The translated questionnaire was piloted among 45 patients consecutively recruited in two general practices in the northern Italian city of Modena in 2023 and obtained excellent scores in comprehension and acceptability. The cross-cultural adaptation presented in this study is a first step towards a complete validation. A full validation study is needed to safely adopt EveryONE in routine general practice and to evaluate its effects on health provision.
Keywords: Italy; cross-cultural adaptation; primary care; screening; social determinants of health.