Internal consistency of Waldrop Physical Anomaly Scale in schizophrenic patients

Abstract 

The aim of the study is to investigate the reliability (internal consistency) of the Waldrop Physical Anomaly Scale in patients with schizophrenia. The subjects were 76 schizophrenic patients (43 men, 33 women) and 82 normal controls (42 men, 40 women) of Bulgarian origin who were examined for minor physical anomalies. The correlations between the anomalies are low in schizophrenia, which indicates poor internal consistency of the scale, probably due to the heterogeneity of the anomalies in terms of location, character, and time of prenatal development. Some sex-related differences in the scale's reliability are indicated. The findings suggest the necessity of a more comprehensive scale by including informative morphogenetic variants, which can provide reliable anomaly assessment, distinguishing between minor malformations and phenogenetic variants and indicating the possible period of prenatal adversity.

Keywords: Dysmorphogenesis, Schizophrenia, Waldrop Physical Anomaly Scale, Scale reliability, Gender