[A clinical rating scale for personality. Its validation through factor analysis in geriatrics (author's transl)].

A rating scale has been established in our department. It is used to assess different psychological aspects. It can be applied in treatment trials as well as to provide a descriptive study of personality or behaviour. 26 two-pole items at five levels are covered by this scale. A factor analysis was used to validate the scale on a population of old people in institutional care. This showed the scale evaluates one general factor and nine group factors: affective maturity, social ease, inhibition, social adaptation, anxiety depression, psychic well-being, psychopathic tendencies, extraversion and receptivity, guilt-feeling. To appreciate the effects of psychotropic drugs on behaviour, these ten factors can be grouped into three: a factor we can call "mental health", a factor of social adaptation, an affective-emotional factor.