BackgroundStudies on the effects of tuberculosis on a patient’s quality of life (QOL) are scant. The objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Taiwan short version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire using patients with tuberculosis in Taiwan and healthy referents.MethodsThe Taiwanese short version of the WHOQOL-BREF was administered to patients with tuberculosis undergoing treatment and healthy referents from March 2007 to July 2007. Patients with tuberculosis (n = 140) and healthy referents (n = 130), matched by age, sex, and ethnicity, agreed to an interview. All participants lived in eastern Taiwan. Reliability assessments included internal consistency, whereas validity assessments included construct validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity.ResultsMore than half of these patients and referents were men (70.7% and 66.2%, respectively), and their average ages were 50.1 and 47.9 years, respectively. Approximately 60% of patients and referents were aboriginal Taiwanese (60.7% and 61.1%, respectively). The proportion with low socioeconomic status was greater for these patients. The internal consistency reliability coefficients were .92 and .93 for the patients and healthy referents, respectively. Exploratory factor analysis on the healthy referents displayed a 4-domain model, which was compatible with the original WHOQOL-BREF 4-domain model. However, for the TB patient group, after deleting 3 items, both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis revealed a 6-domain model.ConclusionPsychometric evaluation of the Taiwan short version of the WHOQOL-BREF indicates that it has adequate reliability for use in research with TB patients in Taiwan. However, the factor structure generated from this TB patient sample differed from the WHO’s original 4-factor model, which raised a validity concern to apply the Taiwan short version of the WHOQOL-BREF to Taiwanese TB patients. Future research recruiting another sample to revisit this validity issue must be conducted to determine the validity of the WHOQOL-BREF TW in patients with TB.

No abstract

No abstract

The current research comprises two samples that investigated the psychometric properties of the Problem-Focused Style of Coping (PF-SOC; Heppner, Cook, Wright, & Johnson) scale using two Taiwanese samples. In Sample 1 (N = 809), we investigated the structural dimensions of the PF-SOC using a principal component analysis (PCA) and confirmed three similar components of Taiwanese coping styles: Reflective, Suppressive, and Reactive. We also examined its psychometric properties and reported that the Taiwanese PF-SOC revealed acceptable estimates of internal reliability and construct validity. In Sample 2 (N = 402), a confirmatory factor analysis on the Taiwanese PF-SOC provided strong support for the revised three-factor structure. It was concluded that the Taiwanese PF-SOC is a reliable measure to assess an individual's dispositional coping style. Implications and future directions are discussed.

The purposes of this study were to determine essential competency components for psychologists providing assessment services in Taiwan and to develop the Psychological Assessment Competency Scale (PACS), a new instrument for measuring this concept. In Study 1, we derived 13 coding categories from both the 8-factor psychological assessment competency (PAC) model of the Psychological Assessment Work Group (PAWG) and the interview data of 46 licensed psychologists in Taiwan. These categories represent essential PAC components for psychologists providing assessment services in Taiwan and were used as the theoretical framework of the PACS for serving this population. In Study 2, we recruited 235 licensed psychologists in Taiwan to investigate the psychometric properties of the PACS. The results of exploratory factor and confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the PACS contained 9 factors that explained 65.82% of the total variance. Cronbach's alpha values of the PACS total and subscale scores were all above .7. The results of our study partially support the PAWG 8-factor model and are consistent with a major assumption of the Cube model. In other words, competencies should be measured according to both foundational and functional perspectives. The findings of this study also support the importance of 4 foundational competencies that enable psychologists to provide assessment services in Taiwan. Implications of the study and suggestions were also discussed.