Psychometric Properties and Configural Invariance of the Polish - Language Version of the 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale in Non-clinical and Alcohol Addict Persons.

Dawid Konrad Ścigała,Andrzej Kokoszka,Elżbieta Zdankiewicz-Ścigała,Sylwia Bedyńska

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01241

Abstract

AimThe development and assessment of the psychometric properties of the Polish-language version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (Bagby et al., 1994a, b) is described in this article. The aim of this study was to translate the TAS – 20 into Polish and establish the psychometric properties of this instrument evaluating alexithymia.Materials and MethodsData were collected via self-report measures from a total sample of 676 participants: a total of 180 participants (115 males and 65 females) diagnosed with alcohol dependence, and 496 control group (347 males and 149 females).ResultsConfirmatory factor analyses found the factor structure of the original English-language TAS 20 for the three subscales translated into Polish: Difficulty in Identifying Feeling (DIF); Difficulty in Describing Feeling (DDF); Externally Oriented Thinking (EOT). All three subscales showed good internal consistency in non-clinical group and two subscales, DIF and DDF in alcohol addict group. Several EOT items loaded poorly on their intended factor.ConclusionThe results from the present study indicate that the Polish version of the TAS - 20 is a reliable and valid measure of alexithymia with good levels of internal consistency, homogeneity, and construct validity. We conclude that the TAS-20 has, for the most part, adequate psychometric properties, though interpretation should focus only on the total scale score and DIF and DDF subscales, especially in clinical groups.

Highlights

Alexithymia is a trait involving difficulties in the cognitive processing of emotions (Nemiah and Sifneos, 1970)
The syndrome of alexithymia, which means, according to the idea of this term’s creators, i.e., Nemiah and Sifneos (1970), "the absence of words for emotions," appeared in psychology literature mainly with reference to patients who suffer from psychosomatic disorders, patients addicted to alcohol and drugs, patients with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and sociopaths (Sifneos, 1991)
Given its sensitivity to sample size, we considered more specific measures of the model fit such as root mean square error approximation (RMSEA), the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), and the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI)

Summary

Introduction

Earlier findings of the researchers (Taylor et al, 1990b) regarding deficits which are typical for the syndrome of alexithymia included a dimension related to limitations in using imagination This factor was incorporated in the original version of the questionnaire to investigate alexithymia, i.e., Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-26) (Taylor et al, 1990a). Further works carried out by a team of Canadian researchers to improve the psychometric properties of the alexithymia test tool resulted in a 20-question version: TAS-20 (Taylor et al, 1990b; Bagby et al, 1994a,b) The reason for such final version was to develop a tool with satisfactory psychometric properties, and the fact that it was assumed that the "Externally Oriented Thinking" factor includes content referring to the "poverty of imaginary life" factor; there is no need to isolate this dimension separately (Parker et al, 2003). Due to the fact that at the moment we have a very large pool of results obtained from various research projects, where we used the TAS20 scale, we have decided that this is a large enough sample to verify the psychometric properties of the Polish scale for investigating alexithymia

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion