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The three factors of the psychoticism scale of SCL‐90‐R
Author(s) -
Pedersen Geir,
Urnes Øyvind,
Kvarstein Elfrida H.,
Karterud Sigmund
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
personality and mental health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.193
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1932-863X
pISSN - 1932-8621
DOI - 10.1002/pmh.1278
Subject(s) - psychoticism , psychology , confirmatory factor analysis , clinical psychology , schizotypy , scale (ratio) , psychopathology , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , personality , construct validity , sample (material) , psychosis , psychometrics , big five personality traits , psychiatry , structural equation modeling , extraversion and introversion , social psychology , statistics , physics , chemistry , mathematics , quantum mechanics , chromatography
Former studies have repeatedly found the psychoticism (PSY) scale of Symptom Checklist‐90‐Revised to be a heterogeneous construct. The aim of this study was to confirm and further explore the nature of this heterogeneity within a large sample of patients with mainly personality disorders. Within a total sample of 3 794 patients, one‐half was randomly selected for explorative factor analysis in order to assess the internal structure of the PSY scale and the other half to cross‐validate the findings by a confirmatory factor analysis. The total sample was then used to assess associations between the components from the factor analyses and several clinical measures and diagnoses. A one‐factor solution of the PSY scale yielded poor fit to the data, but a proposed structure of three latent constructs was confirmed by good model fit. The three subsets of the PSY scale, labelled metacognitive dysfunction, self‐accusation and detachment, shared variance with different personality disorders and different aspects of psychopathology, e.g. previous psychotic episodes. The heterogeneous PSY scale of SCL‐90‐R can be divided into three meaningful clinical concepts, reflecting different aspects of psychosis‐near experiences. The factors warrant confirmation in other populations. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.