Premium
Measuring the subjective: revisiting the psychometric properties of three rating scales that assess the acute effects of hallucinogens
Author(s) -
Bouso José Carlos,
PedreroPérez Eduardo José,
Gandy Sam,
AlcázarCórcoles Miguel Ángel
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
human psychopharmacology: clinical and experimental
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.461
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1099-1077
pISSN - 0885-6222
DOI - 10.1002/hup.2545
Subject(s) - hallucinogen , ayahuasca , psychology , polychoric correlation , psychometrics , confirmatory factor analysis , rating scale , short forms , clinical psychology , psychiatry , statistics , developmental psychology , structural equation modeling , mathematics , geometry , sociology , anthropology , correlation
Objective In the present study we explored the psychometric properties of three widely used questionnaires to assess the subjective effects of hallucinogens: the Hallucinogen Rating Scale (HRS), the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ), and the Addiction Research Center Inventory (ARCI). Methods These three questionnaires were administered to a sample of 158 subjects (100 men) after taking ayahuasca, a hallucinogen whose main active component is N,N ‐dimethyltryptamine (DMT). A confirmatory factorial study was conducted to check the adjustment of previous data obtained via theoretical proposals. When this was not possible, we used an exploratory factor analysis without restrictions, based on tetrachoric and polychoric matrices and correlations. Results Our results sparsely match the theoretical proposals of the authors, perhaps because previous studies have not always employed psychometric methods appropriate to the data obtained. However, these data should be considered preliminary, pending larger samples to confirm or reject the proposed structures obtained. Conclusions It is crucial that instruments of sufficiently precise measurement are utilized to make sense of the information obtained in the study of the subjective effects of psychedelic drugs. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.