Measurement Invariance of Commonly Used Psychosis-Screening Scales in US Spanish- and English-Speaking Hispanic Participants

Abstract

Two of the most commonly used psychosis screening measures are the Prodromal Questionnaire-Brief (PQ-B) and the Youth Psychosis at Risk Questionnaire-Brief (YPARQ-B). Both scales have considerable support for the reliability and validity of their scores for use with English- and Spanish-speaking participants, with measurement equivalence established across a subset of demographic characteristics. However, measurement invariance has not been examined across several important demographic variables, including: native language, language of the scales used with Hispanic participants, education, occupation, income, birth country, and generation status. In the current study (N = 1,202) measurement invariance was examined for each of these variables across three samples (ns = 505, 713, and 126). The PQ-B total scores and YPARQ-B were found to demonstrate configural and scalar invariance, while PQ-B Distress scores displayed configural, metric, and scalar invariance across most tested demographic variables. Psychosis scores were associated with social determinants of health including major and everyday experiences of discrimination, food insecurity, financial insecurity, acculturation, and ethnic identity. The associations between psychosis and social determinants of health were mostly consistent across groups. Compared to White-non-Hispanic participants, Hispanic participants had higher scores on all psychosis measures and tended to have higher scores on discrimination, food and housing insecurity, affirmation aspects of ethnic identity, and acculturative stress. Despite differences in psychosis levels, the groups did not differ in history of treatment. Overall, these results provide strong evidence that the PQ-B and YPARQ provide equivalent, non-biased, valid, and reliable scores in Hispanic and Non-Hispanic participants in both English and Spanish.