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Psychometric properties of the Italian version of the SCL-90-R: A study on a large community sample

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2011

Antonio Prunas ,
Irene Sarno ,
Emanuele Preti ,
Fabio Madeddu  and
Marco Perugini
Antonio Prunas*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Milan-Bicocca State University, Milano, Italy
Irene Sarno
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Milan-Bicocca State University, Milano, Italy
Emanuele Preti
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Milan-Bicocca State University, Milano, Italy
Fabio Madeddu
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Milan-Bicocca State University, Milano, Italy
Marco Perugini
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Milan-Bicocca State University, Milano, Italy
*
*E-mail address:antonio.prunas@unimib.it.
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Abstract

We present the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Italian version of the SCL-90-R based on a large sample of the Italian population. The sample (N = 3631) included high-school and university students and adults from the community (age range=13–70 yrs; 39.2% males). Principal component analysis (PCA) supported by parallel analysis, yielded eight components, partially overlapping those in the original version; no evidence of Psychoticism and Paranoid Ideation as separate subscales emerged. Twenty-one items were consecutively deleted, leading to a 69-item version of the scale. Internal coherence was good for all subscales (α values between 0.70 and 0.96). However, the eight-factor solution did not prove consistent when analyses were replicated after dividing the sample in subgroups according to gender and age. A second-order PCA yielded a single factor, supporting the adoption of the GSI as an index of general distress. A 69-item brief version of the scale has been empirically derived in this study, and can possibly be adopted as a screening measure for general distress in Italian adults and adolescents; however, caution should be exercised when interpreting the clinical profile due to the instability of factor structure.

Keywords

PsychometricsPsychopathologySelf-reportDistress
Type
Original articles
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 27 , Issue 8 , November 2012 , pp. 591 - 597
Copyright
Copyright © European Psychiatric Association 2012

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Footnotes

1

Antonio Prunas, Irene Sarno, Emanuele Preti contributed equally to study design, data gathering and analysis and writing of the manuscript.

2

Given the proximity of 95th percentile of the first eigenvalue of the randomly generated data with the eigenvalue of the ninth factor, the nine-factor solution was also inspected. Scale validity coefficients [8] for the nine a priori subscales of SCL-90-R were correlated with factor scores from the nine-factor PCA. The nine empirical factors did not show any evidence in support of the expected correlation pattern with theoretically derived SCL-90-R subscales.

3

Six of deleted items are originally from PSY, three from SOM, ANX and OTHER, two from DEP and PHOB.

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