Objective: To evaluate the psychometric properties of an Attitude toward Psychiatric Disorders Scale-Short Form (APDS-SF) designed for the assessment of orientation of general people towards mental illnesses.
Methodology: This Correlational Research was conducted from January to April, 2019 at Department of Psychology, University of Gujrat. Attitude toward Psychiatric Disorders Scale (APDS) was administered on 560 students selected by Simple Random Probability Sampling Technique from various faculties of University of Gujrat. Their age ranged between 18 to 29 years (M=20.96; SD=1.61). Exploratory Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and Cronbach Alpha Reliability Coefficients Analysis were carried out to analyse the results.
Results: Out of 55 items, two items showing non-significant item-total reliability coefficients were discarded. One item has not grouped in six factors yielded by exploratory factor analysis for APDS and hence was deleted from the questionnaire. The model fit summary of confirmatory factor analysis showed 0.947 Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) with rest of the model fit values coming in acceptable ranges, after deleting 33 items. So, it confirmed the structure of the APDS-R with 22 items with good reliability coefficients has six subscales.
Conclusion: The psychometric properties of Attitude toward Psychiatric Disorders Scale- Short Form (APDS-SF) showed that the assessment tool can be reliability used with general population to gauge their attitudes towards mental illnesses.
Key words: Intellectual disability, mental illness, psychiatric disorders.
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