Menstrual symptom questionnaire: further psychometric evaluation

Novak, Jones, and Jones (1975) state that menstrual distress (dysmenorrhea) is the greatest cause of lost work hours among women, and Kistner (1970) estimate this to be 140 million annual work hours. Thirty-five percent of female adolescents. 25% of college women, and 60–70% of single females in their 30's and 40's are said to be invalid during menstruation (Green, 1971). Treatment procedures for primary dysmenorrhea have included hypnosis (Lackie, 1964), physical exercises (Golub. 1959). natural childbirth techniques (House, 1969), and oral contraceptives.

Though hormones are the most recent, frequent and effective treatment approach (Novak et al. 1975). Tyler (1973) cautions against their use because of possible adverse side effects. Recently, systematic desensitization (SD) has been used to relieve menstrual distress (Mullen, 1968, 1971; Reich, 1972; Tasto and Chesney, 1974) without risk of such side effects. Although SD has been effective, considerable response variability has been noted.

Becuase of this variability. Chesney and Tasto (1975a) developed the Menstrual Symptom Questionnaire (MSQ) to psychometrically identify two types of primary dysmenorrhea: spasdomic dysmenorrhea which designates distress during the flow period associated with excessive muscle tension, and congestive dysmenorrhea referring to premenstrual tension related to water retention. This instrument was designed to define types of menstrual symptoms and not symptom severity. Test-retest reliability was 0.87 and discrimination between spasdomic and congestive dysmenorrhea was highly significant. Of 48 women tested. 29 were identified as spasdomic with MSQ scores between 82 and 102, while 19 scored in the congestive range (46–68). Interestingly, no women scored in the median range (69–81), suggesting that there exists two unique types of primary dysmenorrhea identifiable by the MSQ. Subsequently, Chesney and Tasto (1975b) reported that congestive women did not respond to SD, while spasdomic symptoms were significantly reduced. It was hypothesized that the relaxation training component of SD was effective with spasmodic muscle tension symptoms and ineffective with congestive water retention symptoms. Consequently, the MSQ was thought capable of accounting for previously reported response variability of primary dysmenorrhea to SD.

The present study was intended to replicate Chesney and Tasto's (1975a, 1975b) findings. The following Null hypotheses were tested; (a) the MSQ does not have significant test-retest reliability; (b) the congestive-spasmodic symptom dimension of the MSQ is not dichotomous; and (c) the MSQ does not predict SD effectiveness     

The Rorschach Records of Suicidal Patients. An Application of a Comparative Matching Technique

The experiment examined whether reliable personality differences exist between (a) women who suffer from spasmodic and congestive dysmenorrhea and (b) women who experience dysmenorrhea and women who do not. A sample of 12 congestive dysmenorrhea sufferers, 12 spasmodic dysmenorrhea suffers, and 24 nonsufferers obtained from a larger sample of university women, completed the Menstrual Symptom Questionnaire, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Tennessee Self-Concept Scale, and Personality Research Form. Results indicated that congestive sufferers differed from spasmodic sufferers only in their level of impulsivity. However, dysmenorrhea sufferers differed significantly from nonsufferers in that dysmenorrhea sufferers were more similar to a neurotic sample, were depressed, anxious and introverted, and less independent, playful, satisfied with themselves, positive about their physical and social selves than nonsufferers. In spite of these differences, standard scores from the personality measures suggested that dysmenorrhea sufferers were not maladjusted.     

The effectiveness of behavior modification with spasmodic and congestive dysmenorrhea

Women reporting menstrual discomfort were diagnosed by the Menstrual Symptom Questionnaire as suffering from either spasmodic or congestive dysmenorrhea. Six groups were constructed to form a (congestive vs. spasmodic) × 3 (behavior therapy therapy vs. pseudotreatment vs. waiting list) factorial design. The behavior therapy groups received relaxation combined with premenstrual imagery, and the pseudo-treatment groups engaged in open discussion of personal problems of dysmenorrhea. The Symptom Severity Scale was administered prior to and following treatment as an index of the degree to which menstrual symptoms were experienced. The major finding of clinical significance was that the behavior therapy treatment procedure was highly effective in reducing the reported symptomatology of women suffering from spasmodic dysmenorrhea whereas this approach was not effective in reducing the symptomatology of women suffering from congestive dysmenorrhea. The results are discussed in terms of the need to differentiate type of dysmenorrhea before proceeding with the treatment program herein described.     

Factor structure of the Menstrual Symptom Questionnaire: relationship to oral contraceptives, neuroticism and life stress

The Menstrual Symptom Questionnaire was administered to initial and cross-validation samples of college-age women. Factor analyses performed on the data from each sample failed to support Dalton's distinction between spasmodic and congestive forms of primary dysmenorrhea. Instead, a more complicated factor structure evolved, closely resembling Webster's findings, with factors representing menstrual pain, pre-menstrual negative affect, pre-menstrual water retention, pre-menstrual pain, menstrual backache and menstrual gastrointestinal symptoms. Oral contraceptive use was negatively related to menstrual pain and backache. Neuroticism scores were positively related to all six factors, and negative life changes to four of these factors, suggesting a role for psychogenic factors in both pre-menstrual and menstrual symptomatology.     

校园霸凌行为问卷的编制

目的:从贵州省青少年校园霸凌行为的实际出发,以大样本为基础,遵循心理测量学的方法编制《校园霸凌行为问卷》。方法:经理论建模、题库建设编制初测问卷,以3923名学生为被试进行项目分析和探索性因子分析; 以3899名被试进行信度检验及验证性因子分析,形成最终问卷。结果:问卷由7个一阶因子和2个二阶因子组成,共40个题项。问卷及各维度的内部一致性系数在0.7～0.927之间,重测信度在0.291～0.49之间,结构效度良好,与OBVQ-V和MBVS的相关分别为0.646和0.726。结论:本研究探索、发现并整合创新了反映当代校园霸凌治理难点的“恶整霸凌”; 问卷信效度良好,可作为国内青少年校园霸凌行为的有效测量工具。     

Subjective assessment of sleep by Sleep Questionnaire

A 55-item Sleep Questionnaire is presented for possible use as a standardized instrument in psychological studies of sleep. A factor analysis of responses from 145 adults to the questionnaire indicated 7 factors accounted for 71.7% of the total variance. These factors are congruent with sleep dimensions discussed in the literature and with other factor analytic investigations. A set of 11 clinical judgment scales are also presented. The reliabilities of both factor and clinical scales are adequate as judged by test-retest, internal consistency, and comparisons of self vs spouse ratings. The construct validity is supported by three studies showing significant differences between (a) medical patients with and without sleep disturbances, (b) psychiatric patients with and without symptoms of depression, and (c) short and long sleepers.     

The Perception of Teasing Scale (POTS): A Revision and Extension of the Physical Appearance Related Teasing Scale (PARTS)

This article describes the development and validation of a revised measure for the assessment of history of being teased about physical appearance. Study 1 involved the preliminary psychometric evaluation of the questionnaire on a sample of 227 college women, Two factors emerged: Weight-Related Teasing (WT) and Teasing About Abilities/Competencies (Competency Teasing; CT). The integrity of the factor structure of these two scales was established in Study 2 with a sample of 87 college women. Internal consistency ratios in this sample were also found to be acceptable. In Study 3, 92 college women were administered measures of body image, eating disturbance, and self-esteem to test for convergence with the Perception of Teasing Scale. Subjects also rated teasing items for frequency and effect (e.g., how upset they were by the teasing). Two-week test-retest reliabilities for these measures were acceptable. Weight-Related Teasing correlated to a greater degree with other measures than Competency Teasing. Regression analyses revealed the importance of a frequency versus effect dimension. Findings are discussed in light of recent research on developmental factors in body image and eating disturbance.     

The Perception of Teasing Scale (POTS): a revision and extension of the Physical Appearance Related Teasing Scale (PARTS)

This article describes the development and validation of a revised measure for the assessment of history of being teased about physical appearance. Study 1 involved the preliminary psychometric evaluation of the questionnaire on a sample of 227 college women, Two factors emerged: Weight-Related Teasing (WT) and Teasing About Abilities/Competencies (Competency Teasing; CT). The integrity of the factor structure of these two scales was established in Study 2 with a sample of 87 college women. Internal consistency ratios in this sample were also found to be acceptable. In Study 3, 92 college women were administered measures of body image, eating disturbance, and self-esteem to test for convergence with the Perception of Teasing Scale. Subjects also rated teasing items for frequency and effect (e.g., how upset they were by the teasing). Two-week test-retest reliabilities for these measures were acceptable. Weight-Related Teasing correlated to a greater degree with other measures than Competency Teasing. Regression analyses revealed the importance of a frequency versus effect dimension. Findings are discussed in light of recent research on developmental factors in body image and eating disturbance.     

Test Anxiety Scale: reliability among Ethiopian students

Sarason's Test Anxiety Scale, translated into an Ethiopian language, was administered to 391 students in Grade 8 and to 422 students in preparatory school (Grades 11 and 12). In the first sample, 32 items loaded above the 0.3 criterion of acceptable item-remainder correlations and Cronbach alpha of .84. In the second sample, Cronbach alpha was .84 for the 34 items, but only 19 items had acceptable item-remainder correlations. The internal consistency reliabilities were comparable with those reported in the literature. However, the results of confirmatory factor analyses with extraction of four factors did not confirm the item loadings on factors as reported in the literature. Younger students (Grade 8) were found to have higher mean Test Anxiety than Grades 11 and 12 students. The Amharik version of the Test Anxiety Scale as a whole could be considered reliable and useful for Ethiopian students.     

Exploratory factor analysis and psychometric properties of the General Health Questionnaire in Spanish adolescents

The aim of this study was to assess the homogeneity of items, reliability as a metric indicator of global quality (internal consistency and temporal stability), and the exploratory factor structure of the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28) in a sample of 2,010 Spanish adolescents. Mean age was 15.9 yr. (range 14-19, SD = 2.1). The test was administered twice with 20 days between responses, Answers were scored on a Likert-type scale. The internal consistency and test-retest reliabilities obtained were .93 and .94. In exploratory factor analysis, four factors explained 52.7% of the variance. These results indicated that the GHQ-28 is a psychometrically sound mental health measure in Spanish adolescents.     

Temporal stability and predictive validity of self-assessed hand preference with first and second graders

The test-retest reliability and predictive validity of a five-item hand preference questionnaire (writing, drawing, throwing a baseball, brushing teeth, and cutting with scissors) were investigated in a sample of 80 children attending first and second grade. After 1 month, 81% of the second choices were the same as the first choices. There were interitem differences in the reliabilities of the five items. Writing and drawing hand exhibited the greatest degree of temporal stability. Writing hand was the one task which was significantly related to visual field bias as indexed by a face perception task.     

Psychometric properties of the Wolpe-Lazarus assertiveness scale

The psychometric properties of the Wolpe-Lazarus Assertiveness Scale (WLAS) were evaluated with a sample of 100 male and 157 female psychiatric patients. There were no significant differences with regard to males and females for total WLAS scores. The WLAS seems to be internally consistent and has acceptable split-half and test-retest reliabilities. A factor analysis performed separately for males and females indicates that the 10 most prominent factors account for about 60% of the accumulated variance. The primary factor, shared by males and females, was labeled General Expressiveness. There was little evidence for the external validity of the WLAS when total scores were correlated with performance on a role play test. However, when WLAS factor scores were evaluated in light of role played performance, somewhat better evidence of the external validity of the WLAS was found in two of the factors for the females.     

Coping through emotional approach: scale construction and validation

Four studies demonstrate the psychometric adequacy and validity of scales designed to assess coping through emotional approach. In separate undergraduate samples, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of dispositional (Study 1) and situational (Study 3) coping item sets yielded 2 distinct emotional approach coping factors: emotional processing (i.e., active attempts to acknowledge and understand emotions) and emotional expression. The 2 scales yielded high internal consistency and test-retest reliability, as well as convergent and discriminant validity. A study (Study 2) of young adults and their parents established the scales' interjudge reliabilities. Longitudinal (Study 3) and experimental (Study 4) research supported the predictive validity of the emotional approach coping scales with regard to adjustment to stressful encounters. Findings highlight the utility of functionalist theories of emotion as applied to coping theory.     

Coping strategies: Evidence for cross-cultural differences? A preliminary study with the Italian version of coping orientations to problems experienced (COPE)

The internal structure of the COPE inventory (Carver, Scheier & Weintraub, 1989), a questionnaire which measures 15 different coping strategies, was studied. The Italian version of COPE was administered to 521 undergraduate students. Alpha and test-retest reliabilities were very similar to those obtained in the above American study. A rotated factor analysis resulted in 13 factors, which came out in a different order with respect to those obtained in the original study. A second-order factor analysis yielded five factors similar to those obtained by Carver etal., except for ‘Turning to religion’, which was present in the Italian study only. It is concluded that the Italian version of COPE has good construct validity and that the traditional taxonomy of coping strategies should also be studied in the light of transcultural differences.     

Exploring the structure of Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale, Form V in a Spanish sample

The psychometric properties of the original version of the Sensation Seeking Scale (Form V) were analyzed in a sample of 1,006 Spanish university students. The total sample was randomly split into two halves. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted on the calibration sample (n=504), whereas confirmatory factor analysis procedures were performed on the validation sample (n=502). As previous studies have suggested, exploratory factor structure indicated that several items load on a different factor or have loadings lower than .30. Those problems were surpassed when the best five items per factor were factor analyzed again. The confirmatory factor analyses showed that a 4-factor simple structure model gave a clearly imperfect fit. A model of 20 items (5 items per factor) gave a better fit, although with similar problems regarding the low reliabilities of the Experience Seeking and Boredom Susceptibility subscales. The need for improvement of the four-factor structure is discussed.     

Reliability of diabetes-specific social support scales

The Diabetes Care Profile (DCP) is frequently used to assess diabetes-related quality of life. The social support scales have demonstrated internal consistency but test-retest reliability has not been established. Sixty-three type 2 diabetes patients participated in a telephone coaching study designed to improve diabetes control. The DCP was filled out at pre- and post-test. The test-retest reliabilities of three social support scales (Global, GET, GET-WANT) were calculated. At a mean retest interval of 6.5 months, the support scales showed reliabilities of 0.48 (Global and GET), and 0.38 (GET-WANT). The social support scales of the DCP show adequate long-term test-retest reliability.     

中学校风因素结构的探索性分析

本研究结合国内外相关研究,探索了校风的内涵、外延,并在此基础上,通过开放式调查、深度访谈、问卷初测和正式施测,使用探索性因素分析和验证性因素分析等方法探索了校风的因素结构。本研究认为校风的因素结构包括学生风气、教师风气和组织风气三个二阶因子和十三个一阶因子,本问卷具有良好的信度和效度,可以作为评定中学校风的工具。     

中国人人格量表的信度与效度

在初步确定中国人人格量表（Qingnian Zhongguo Personality Scale, QZPS）的基础上,通过对5000多被试的施测,确定了QZPS的项目构成及信度和效度。研究中对QZPS的项目重新进行探索性因素分析,确认了中国人人格的七因素结构,根据对每一个大因素的因素分析和项目鉴别度分析,确定了QZPS各个因素的项目构成和内部一致性系数,共180个项目。通过自-他评定的相关、自评与标尺评定的相关、以及对特殊群体分数分布的分析验证了QZPS的效度。研究结果确认QZPS有良好的信度和效度,可以应用于人格的理论和应用领域。     

An examination of the psychometric properties of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) in Chinese acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients

The psychometric properties of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) as a clinical research instrument for acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients were investigated in a translated Chinese version of the instrument. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on the RSES to establish its psychometric properties in 128 ACS patients over two observation points (within 1 week and 6 months post-admission for ACS). Internal and test-retest reliability of the RSES-TOT (all-items) and RSES-POS sub-scale (positively valenced items) were found to be acceptable. The RSES-NEG sub-scale (negatively valenced items) lacked acceptable internal reliability. The underlying factor structure of the RSES comprised two distinct but related factors, though there was inconsistency in best model fit indices at the 1-week observation point. The use of the RSES as two sub-scales (RSES-POS and RSES-NEG) may be clinically useful in evaluating the influence of this important psychological construct on the health outcomes of patients with ACS. Directions for future research are indicated.     

Test-retest reliability of the Profile of Mood States using visually impaired athletes

The test-retest reliabilities of the Profile of Mood States when items were read aloud on consecutive days to 15 nationally ranked visually impaired athletes ranged from .78 to .95, so the scale can be used with visually impaired athletes who cannot complete the profile in the traditional written manner.