Características psicométricas do questionário de crenças dos transtornos de personalidade: forma reduzida

Abstract

This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Brazilian version of the Personality Belief Questionnaire - Short Form (PBQ-SF). The central idea of the questionnaire is based on the assumption that descriptive differences of Personality Disorders may be supported by different patterns of beliefs, as they are perceived in different clinical symptoms. A sample of 700 university students from various courses, of both sexes (52.1% female), aged between 18 and 55 years (mean = 21.6, SD = 4.7) responded to the Brazilian version PBQ-SF. The results showed enough to estimate the reliability (Cronbach\'s alpha) of the PBQ-SF scales: paranoid (.84), schizoid/schizotypal (.68), antisocial (.73), borderline (.75), histrionic (.78), Narcissistic (.72), avoidant (.64), dependent (.71), obsessive-Compulsive (.80), and passive-aggressive (.68), indicating a significant association between the beliefs of each scales. Factor analysis does not fully uphold the original structure of the PBQ-SF, but the results showed a very approximate model of its original structure, noting more similarities than contradictions between them. The factorial solution had a setting of 9 factors very close to the original structure of the 10 PBQ-SF scales. Of the 65 original items on the global scale, 8 items (ANT42, DEP62, DEP63, EQZ53, ESQ33, ESQ43, PAS04 and PAS07) were found nondiscriminatory because they had factor loadings less than 0.4 distributed among various factors and therefore excluded from the model, and 11 items (ANT23, ANT32, ANT38, ANT59, HIS08, NAR10, NAR60, ESQ31, ESQ39, BOR64, BOR65) were grouped in categories other than its original configuration. The present semantic proximity between some items of different scales seems to be one of the reasons for the different factor configuration from the original model. Additional factor analysis studies using clinical samples are suggested to expand these results. The factor analysis also provide the basis to proceed, in future studies, a review of the deleted items and those were grouped into different categories as provided by the original scales of the PBQ-SF, so that it can achieve greater specificity and better discrimination. In general, the findings provided subsidies for the evaluation of the requirements that demonstrate the existence of validity for the Brazilian version of the PBQSF, suggesting that it carries the promise of being a practical instrument for the measure of dysfunctional beliefs related to disorders personality.