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Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties of a New Scale to Assess Alexithymia-Like Features in Japanese Youth
1Department of Medical Psychology, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan
2Graduate School of Teacher Training Development, University of Toyama, Toyama, Japan
3Graduate School of Teacher Education, Saga University, Saga, Japan
Background: Studies of alexithymia have primarily targeted adult populations. Although some recent studies of alexithymia have focused on children and young adolescents, the literature is not sufficient for development of an assessment tool. The aim of this study was to develop, and evaluate the psychometric properties of, a new scale to measure alexithymia-like features in young adolescents.
Methods: A total of 1,444 Japanese junior high school students (701 males, 743 females; age range 12-15; mean [SD] age, 13.37 [0.98] years) participated in 2 surveys conducted at their own schools.
Results: First, exploratory factor analysis of the first survey data (n=981) demonstrated that this new scale had a unifactor structure, as determined by minimum average partial analysis and parallel analysis. Second, confirmatory factor analysis of the second survey data (n=463) confirmed the unifactor structure of this new scale and acceptable goodness of model fit. The new scale had modest internal consistency.
Conclusions: The correlations of this new alexithymia scale with related variables were weak but significant, in accordance with our hypothesis. The scale had acceptable reliability and convergent validity and thus might be useful for measuring alexithymic tendency in young adolescents.
J Nippon Med Sch 2020; 87: 285-293
Keywords
alexithymia, children/adolescents, scale development, reliability, validity
Correspondence to
Masami Kashimura, Department of Medical Psychology, Nippon Medical School, 1-7-1 Kyonan-cho, Musashino, Tokyo 180-0023, Japan
muramasa@nms.ac.jp
Received, November 29, 2019
Accepted, January 21, 2020
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