Validation of the Five-Factor Model of the Arabic Version of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale in Schizophrenia

Abstract

Background: The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) is a widely used assessment for patients with schizophrenia across clinical and research settings. This scale allows the classification of the psychotic symptoms to better understand the psychopathology in patients with schizophrenia. There are no available data on the different components of psychopathology in Arab patients with schizophrenia. Objectives: This study examined the factor structure of the validated Arabic version of the PANSS in a sample of Arab patients with schizophrenia. Methods: The Arabic version of the PANSS was administered to 101 patients with schizophrenia, and principal component analysis (PCA) was carried out after the cross-cultural adaptation and validation of this version. Results: This sample had more males (66.3%) than females (33.7%) with a mean age of 35.03 years (SD = 9.99). PCA showed that 28 items loaded on 5 components: cognitive, negative, excited, depressed and positive. These factors explained 63.19% of variance. The 2 remaining items, grandiosity and somatic concerns, did not load well on any of these components. Conclusion: Our results support the common 5-dimension PANSS model shown in other cultures with different languages. Nevertheless, there were minor differences, which could reflect cultural or semantic differences.

Cross-cultural adaptation of the Arabic Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale in schizophrenia: Qualitative analysis of a focus group

“…Instead, patients tend to use somatic terms and expressions and to seek medical treatments without insight into their possible relationship to their psychiatric disorder. This was also supported by the factor structure analysis of the Arabic version of PANSS, which showed very similar components to other culturally validated PANSS, except for the item on somatic concerns, which was factored as a separate component and was not associated with the other components of psychotic or depressive symptoms (Yehya et al, 2017). There are some limitations that might affect the outcomes and should be controlled for in future studies.…”

“…These matters are essential during the processes of cultural adaptation, as they might affect the ratings and thus compromise the reliability and validity of PANSS across cultures. These measures were very comparable between the Arabic PANSS and the other versions of PANSS (Hallit, Obeid, Haddad, Kazour, & Kazour, 2017;Yehya et al, 2016Yehya et al, , 2017. The following sections will focus mainly on the cultural themes.…”

“…Since its publication in 1987, PANSS has been translated into more than 30 official languages (Opler & Ramirez, 1998). Recently, we quantitatively validated the Arabic version of PANSS in Arabs with schizophrenia (Yehya et al., 2016, 2017).…”

Cross-Validation of the Arabic Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview, Module K, for Diagnosis of Schizophrenia and the Arabic Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale

“…This cross-sectional study is part of a project aiming to validate the Arabic versions of psychiatric scales used in the assessment of patients with schizophrenia in the Arab population residing in Qatar (Hammoudeh et al 2016;Hani et al 2016;Yehya et al 2016;Yehya et al 2017). This paper reports a secondary analysis of the relationship between the Arabic MINI6-Mod-K and PANSS.…”

“…The Arabic version of the PANSS was translated, culturally adapted and linguistically validated by our team (Yehya et al 2016) to address the lack of availability of such tools in the Arabic language. It had good validity, reliability, and internal consistency and therefore proved to b e a r e l i a b l e m e a s u r e m e n t s c a l e i n t h e A r a b population (Yehya et al 2016;Yehya et al 2017).…”