French Adaptation of the Brief Irritability Test: Factor Structure, Psychometric Properties, and Relationship with Depressive Symptoms

Abstract

The Brief Irritability Test (BITe, Holtzman et al., 2014 ) is a brief, reliable, and valid self-report measure of irritability. Despite the growing interest to understand the underlying causes and consequences of irritability, this questionnaire has not been developed and validated for a French-speaking population yet. In the present study, 413 participants completed our French adaptation of the BITe (i.e., TCI; Test Court d’Irritabilité) and measures of associated constructs (depression, anger, hostility, and aggression) and well-being (life satisfaction and social support). Descriptive, psychometric (i.e., Cronbach alpha and Spearman correlation coefficients), and factor analyses were conducted. An exploratory factor analysis in sample 1 (n = 209), yielded one single factor. The confirmatory factor analysis in sample 2 (n = 204) showed a reasonable fit of this single factor model explaining 55.5% of the variance and presenting a strong internal consistency (α = .80). Compared to the original English questionnaire, the TCI shares similar unidimensional factor organization and correlations with other constructs, although a gender bias was identified, with women scoring higher than men. Irritability was higher among respondents in the age range 17–25, compared to older adults. A hierarchical regression analysis showed that TCI scores significantly predict depressive symptoms when demographics were controlled for. In summary, the TCI presents good psychometric properties and could constitute a valuable tool to evaluate irritability in clinical and research contexts.

Associated factors and psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Brief Irritability Test (BITe) in Paraguayan population

“…As for reliability, in our sample it was =0.91, which shows excellent internal consistency, as did the English (α=0.91) (4), French (α=0.80) (18), and Turkish (α=0.86) versions (17).…”

“…The purpose of this research was to validate the Spanish version of the Brief Irritability Test (BITe) and to examine whether it reproduced the same construct as the original English version (4). First, the irritability values found are higher than in the original version (16.51 vs. 12.95) (4), as well as in the Turkish version (12.99) (17), but similar to the French version (15.36) (18). As with the validation studies in French and Turkish, the majority of the sample in our study is made up of women; this could be explained by the type of methodology used in these studies (17,18).…”

“…First, the irritability values found are higher than in the original version (16.51 vs. 12.95) (4), as well as in the Turkish version (12.99) (17), but similar to the French version (15.36) (18). As with the validation studies in French and Turkish, the majority of the sample in our study is made up of women; this could be explained by the type of methodology used in these studies (17,18).…”

“…Of course it should be kept in mind that the original version used item response theory, therefore, it is to be expected that only one dimension was found (4). Our Spanish version, as well as the Turkish and French versions, used factor analysis, also finding only one dimension (17,18).…”

Validation of the Arabic version of the brief irritability test (Ar-BITe) in non-clinical adolescents

“…The BITe is preferred over other measures not only for being more economical and time-efficient, but also for having stronger content validity, which signifies that it is more specific in differentiating irritability from similar, related but distinct constructs (such as aggression and anger) and in identifying qualities linked to irritability [ 3 , 37 , 38 ]. Since its development, the BITe has been translated and validated in other-than-English languages, including French [ 41 ], Spanish [ 42 ], and Turkish [ 43 ]. However, as far as we are aware of, there is no Arabic version of the BITe available.…”