Browsing by Subject "Psychometrics"
Item Open Access Exploring the sociotropy-autonomy dimensions in a sample of Turkish psychiatric inpatients(Wiley, 1993) Sahin, N.; Ulusoy, M.; Sahin, N.The present study explored the constructs of sociotropy and autonomy with a group of Turkish depressed inpatients, who were administered the Beck Depression Inventory, the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale, the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire, and the Sociotropy-Autonomy Scale. A comparison group of students from three SES levels also were included in the study. Comparisons were made on the scale scores among the non-dysphoric students, the dysphoric students, and the depressed patients. The results seem to support the relationship of sociotropy with other depression measures in both samples. However, several problems were encountered with the construct autonomy as it is conceptualized in the Sociotropy-Autonomy Scale.Item Open Access How dysfunctional are the dysfunctional attitudes in another culture?(1992) Şahin, N. H.; Şahin, N.The Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (DAS-A) has been used in many studies to measure depressogenic attitudes, vulnerability to depression and to assess the effectiveness of cognitive therapy. Despite its frequent use in research, no data have yet been reported on its item validity. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the item validity and psychometric properties of the DAS-A in the Turkish cultural context. The subjects were 345 university students. The locally adapted versions of the Beck Depression Inventory and the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire were also administered. The reliability coefficients and the factor structure of the DAS-A were found to be similar to those reported in the West. However, the total mean was found to be unusually, high. The reason for this elevated mean score was as found to reside in the response patterns of the subjects to the reverse items. None of these 10 reverse items discriminated the dysphoric and non-dysphoric groups. A closer examination revealed these 10 items to reflect autonomous attitudes. It seems that these 10 reverse items do nothing but distort the mean scores and render cross-cultural comparisons difficult. Recent research on depression shows that, while autonomy may or may not be related to depression, sociotropy has consistent association with it. Researchers in other cultures and those working with minority and immigrant groups are warned against this bias inherent in the DAS-A.Item Open Access Reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the automatic thoughts questionnaire(Wiley, 1992) Sahin, N. H.; Sahin, N.The present study investigated the reliability and validity of the ATQ in the Turkish cultural context. It is hoped that with this type of cross- cultural information, the universality of the proposed cognitive constructs can be advocated more reliably. The subjects were 345 university students; the split-half reliability of the ATQ was found to be r = .91 and Cronbach's alpha was .93; and item/total correlations ranged between .36 and .69. The Turkish ATQ correlated well with the BDI (r = .75), and it discriminated successfully between the symptomatic and asymptomatic groups. Factor analysis revealed five factors that were similar to those found in American samples. Nevertheless, some differences were noticed in the relative strength of the factors and in the distribution of items into factor clusters.Item Open Access Validation of the Chinese version of Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE) in an adolescent general population(Elsevier B.V., 2017) Mark, W.; Toulopoulou, T.The Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE) is a popular 42-item self-report assessment of psychosis proneness (PP) that has been widely-translated. However, there is as yet no validation of CAPE in non-Western languages. Here, we validated a Chinese translation of CAPE (“CAPE-C”) in a young Chinese community sample. Factor analyses were employed in a sample of 660 individuals (mean age = 18.63) to identify a culturally-sensitive factor structure for CAPE-C (Study 1). Since confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) suggested that CAPE-C did not follow the original factor structure, exploratory factor analysis and follow-up CFA were employed to establish an alternative structure, resulting in a 15-item “CAPE-C15” which retained a three-factor structure tapping positive, negative and depressive symptoms. To demonstrate the specificity of CAPE-C15 as a measure of PP, we conducted regression analyses to examine associations between CAPE-C15 dimensions and other measures of psychotic and depressive symptoms (Study 2). Results confirmed that CAPE-C15 dimensions showed specific associations with relevant symptom dimensions of other measures, but not with irrelevant ones. Finally, to aid interpretation of CAPE-C15 scores, Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis was conducted to establish a cut-off score that could indicate test-takers’ need for clinical attention (Study 3). We found that a cut-off score of 8.18 on CAPE-C15 positive and negative symptom frequency and distress scores distinguished individuals whose PP was within normal ranges from those at psychometric high-risk (sensitivity: 78.6%; specificity: 77.7%). CAPE-C15 will likely prove relevant to researchers and healthcare providers who serve Chinese-speaking adolescents and young adults.