Preliminary examination of the psychometric properties of the Psychiatric Scepticism Scale

Abstract

Despite much commentary on "psychiatric skepticism", there remains a dearth of appropriate psychometric scales for the measurement of this concept. To overcome this limitation, the present study examined the psychometric properties and correlates of the recently developed Psychiatric Scepticism Scale (PSS). A total of 564 individuals from the community in London, England, completed the PSS along with measures of anti-scientific attitudes, attitudes to authority, knowledge of mental health disorders, and demographics. Results showed that the PSS has a one-dimensional factor structure with very good internal consistency. In addition, it showed adequate convergent (anti-scientific attitudes, knowledge of mental health disorders) and construct validity (attitudes to authority, religiosity). Results also showed that there were small but significant differences in psychiatric skepticism by ethnicity and education, but not sex or previous diagnosis of mental health disorder. These results confirm that the PSS has adequate psychometric properties for the measurement of psychiatric skepticism.