Development and validation of the Polish experimental short version of the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ-ES-PL) for the assessment of early maladaptive schemas

Abstract

The Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ) measures the intensity of early maladaptive schemas connected with symptoms of mental disorders, particularly personality disorders. We conducted a procedure of shortening the Polish version of the YSQ, analogous to the original one, and determined the psychometric properties of the instrument thus developed by performing a reliability and validity analysis (n = 1.073). In the second part of the study we tested the factor structure of the YSQ using confirmatory factor analysis in the sample from Study 1 and an independent group (n = 898). We reduced the number of items in the questionnaire from 232 to 90 – leaving five items in each of the 18 scales corresponding to specific schemas. We obtained adequate and high internal consistency coefficients for each subscale and for the whole instrument. The overall measure of schemas was positively associated with beliefs characteristic for all personality disorders measured by the Personality Beliefs Questionnaire (PBQ). The intensity of the schemas (except the Self-Sacrifice scale) significantly differentiated participants from the clinical (n = 31) and nonclinical groups (n = 1,042). We also confirmed the theoretical factor structure of the instrument, although the weakness of some measures of fit suggests the need for further research. The obtained results support the use of the experimental short Polish version of the Young Schema Questionnaire as a measure of early maladaptive schemas.

A preliminary study: designing and validating projective images of Young’s early maladaptive schema (EMS) domains

“…The schema questionnaire is a tool used in this therapeutic approach, whereas and the Schema Questionnaire-Short Form ( SQ-SF ) is a very useful instrument for measuring EMSs [ 37 ]. Lee et al [ 30 ] analyzed the psychometric properties of this questionnaire in South Korea, Staniaszek and Popiel [ 56 ] in Poland, Lyrakos [ 32 ] in Greece, Kriston et al [ 27 ] in Germany, Cazassa and Oliveira [ 10 ] in Brazil, Rijkeboer and van den Bergh [ 44 ] in the Netherlands, and [ 55 ] in Romania, All of them reported the psychometric properties of the SQ-SF to be appropriate. Kriston et al [ 28 ] reported no clear evidence confirming the schema domains.…”

Diagnosis of personality disorders: Selected methods and models of assessment

“…Bloo, Arntz, and Schouten (2017) describe an instrument making it possible to assess the complex psychopathology of borderline personality disorder and to monitor the changes that occur over time. Two other texts (Zawadzki, Popiel, Pragłowska, & Newman, 2017;Staniaszek & Popiel, 2017) present instruments rooted in cognitive conceptions focused on the role of schemas in the psychopathology of personality disorders. Schemas understood as core beliefs characteristic for particular personality disorders are measured by means of the Personality Beliefs Questionnaire (PBQ) by A. T. Beck and colleagues, and the Polish versions of this instrument are described by Zawadzki, Popiel, Pragłowska, and Newman (2017).…”

“…Young, play a significant role in the development and maintenance of pathological functioning in people with personality disorders are measured by the Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ), whose short Polish experimental version is presented by Staniaszek and Popiel (2017). The series of texts devoted to instruments concludes with an article about a questionnaire enabling the assessment of personality disorders from the perspective of DSM-5 proposals (Strus, Rowiński, Cieciuch, Kowalska-Dąbrowska, Czuma, & Żechowski, 2017).…”