Department of Human Sciences, European University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
Department of Humanities, Letters, Cultural Heritage and Educational Studies, University of Foggia, 71121 Foggia, Italy.
J Affect Disord. 2025 Jan 15;369:80-86. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2024.09.160. Epub 2024 Sep 23.
The Psychache Scale (PAS) is a questionnaire measuring trait-level psychological pain with satisfactory internal consistency and a strong correlation with suicidal ideation severity. However, inconsistent results have been reported for the PAS dimensionality. In the present study we used a non-parametric item response theory model, called Mokken Scale Analysis (MSA), to refine an unidimensional version of the PAS.
The sample was composed of 400 Italian adults (312 females and 88 males) nonrandomly recruited from the general population.
A final set of 10 items satisfied the unidimensionality, local independence, and monotonicity assumptions, although it did not satisfy the double monotonicity assumption. The internal consistency of the PAS-10 was satisfactory (ordinal alpha = 0.98, ω = 0.97, and AVE = 0.82), and ROC curves analysis indicated good discriminant validity when differentiating participants with higher suicide risk from those with lower suicide risk.
Structural invariance between nonclinical and clinical samples was not investigated, and the presence of suicide ideation and behaviors was assessed with self-report measures with potential under-reporting of the phenomenon.
The PAS-10 resulted to be a potentially valid and unidimensional measure of psychological pain (i.e., psychache) that could be used to screen adults at higher risk for suicide. Future studies are needed to investigate psychometric properties of the PAS-10 in clinical samples and to replicate results in independent samples.
Psychache 量表（PAS）是一种衡量特质水平心理痛苦的问卷，具有令人满意的内部一致性和与自杀意念严重程度的强相关性。然而，PAS 的维度结果并不一致。在本研究中，我们使用一种非参数项目反应理论模型，称为 Mokken 量表分析（MSA），来改进 PAS 的单维版本。
样本由 400 名意大利成年人（312 名女性和 88 名男性）组成，是从一般人群中随机招募的。
尽管没有满足双重单调性假设，但一组最终的 10 个项目满足了单维性、局部独立性和单调性假设。PAS-10 的内部一致性令人满意（ordinal alpha=0.98，ω=0.97，AVE=0.82），ROC 曲线分析表明，当区分自杀风险较高和较低的参与者时，具有良好的区分效度。
未研究非临床和临床样本之间的结构不变性，并且自杀意念和行为的存在是通过自我报告的测量来评估的，可能存在现象的报告不足。
PAS-10 是一种潜在有效的单维心理痛苦（即 Psychache）测量工具，可以用于筛选自杀风险较高的成年人。未来的研究需要在临床样本中调查 PAS-10 的心理测量特性，并在独立样本中复制结果。
