Thamaraiselvi S, Priyadarshini A, Arisalya Namrata, Samuel Reema, Jacob K S
Department of Psychiatry, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India.
Indian J Psychiatry. 2020 Mar-Apr;62(2):121-130. doi: 10.4103/psychiatry.IndianJPsychiatry_510_19. Epub 2020 Mar 17.
Social skills deficits are hallmark symptoms of chronic mental illness. The absence of a culturally sensitive instrument to measure social skills in the Indian population demands the need to develop and standardize such instruments.
The aim of this study was to develop and validate a context-specific, culturally relevant, and performance-based assessment scale for social performance.
An expert committee of mental health professionals reviewed existing literature, identified standardized scales, examined items for cultural relevance, and identified possible issues for measurement. The items were categorized into 5 domains with a 7-point scale. The instrument was initially piloted on 10 participants, then among 101 consecutive clients with chronic mental illness between 18 and 60 years of age who provided written informed consent. They were assessed by two therapists to evaluate inter-rater reliability and test-retest reliability. They were also assessed on the Social Interaction and Communication Skills Checklist (SICSC) to evaluate convergent validity and on the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) to assess divergent validity. Standard statistical tests were used to study its characteristics.
The scale had good inter-rater reliability (0.941; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.914, 0.960) and test-retest reliability (0.928; 95% CI: 0.810, 0.965). The correlation between total score of Vellore Assessment of Social Performance (VASP) and SICSC (Pearson's correlation coefficient = 0.696; = 0.001) suggested moderate convergent validity. The correlation between total score of VASP and GHQ-12 (Pearson's correlation coefficient = -0.046; = 0.648) implied good divergent validity.
VASP seems to be a promising scale to assess social performance in people with mental illness.
社交技能缺陷是慢性精神疾病的标志性症状。由于缺乏一种对印度人群具有文化敏感性的社交技能测量工具，因此需要开发并规范此类工具。
本研究的目的是开发并验证一种针对特定情境、具有文化相关性且基于表现的社交表现评估量表。
一个由心理健康专业人员组成的专家委员会查阅了现有文献，确定了标准化量表，检查了项目的文化相关性，并确定了可能的测量问题。这些项目被分为5个领域，采用7分制。该工具最初在10名参与者身上进行了预试验，然后在101名年龄在18至60岁之间、患有慢性精神疾病且提供书面知情同意书的连续客户中进行了测试。由两名治疗师对他们进行评估，以评估评分者间信度和重测信度。还通过社交互动与沟通技能清单（SICSC）对他们进行评估以评估收敛效度，并通过12项一般健康问卷（GHQ - 12）评估区分效度。使用标准统计测试来研究其特征。
该量表具有良好的评分者间信度（0.941；95%置信区间[CI]：0.914，0.960）和重测信度（0.928；95% CI：0.810，0.965）。韦洛尔社交表现评估量表（VASP）总分与SICSC之间的相关性（皮尔逊相关系数 = 0.696；P = 0.001）表明具有中等收敛效度。VASP总分与GHQ - 12之间的相关性（皮尔逊相关系数 = -0.046；P = 0.648）表明具有良好的区分效度。
VASP似乎是一种很有前景的量表，可用于评估精神疾病患者的社交表现。
