Aim To overcome the lack of a validated and robust Arabic instrument to measure breast cancer awareness. Background Currently, there is no validated Arabic instrument for measuring breast cancer awareness levels. We adapted, translated and validated the Breast Cancer Awareness Measure developed by Cancer Research UK. Methods The instrument was translated into Arabic and back-translated for validation. Validation and reliability tests were conducted using purposively sampled 972 Arab women older than 20 years, living in Oman. The adapted content was validated by a panel of medical, linguistic and cultural experts, followed by cognitive interviews (n = 10), behavioural coding (n = 30) and criterion validation (n = 646). The instrument was tested for acceptability and its subscales for internal consistency. Inter-rater reliability was estimated between two similar groups (n = 144 and n = 142) to test homogeneity. Results The adapted and translated instrument had a high acceptability (98.7% completed). The validation process shaped the adaptation, and resulted in strong criterion validity (R = 0.58, P
