A psychometric evaluation of the Personality Assessment Inventory – short form clinical scales in an inpatient psychiatric sample

Sinclair, Samuel J.; Siefert, Caleb J.; Shorey, Hal S.; Antonius, Daniel; Shiva, Andrew; Kehl-Fie, Kendra; Blais, Mark A.

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2008.11.001

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Volume 170, Issue 2 , Pages 262-266, 30 December 2009

A psychometric evaluation of the Personality Assessment Inventory – short form clinical scales in an inpatient psychiatric sample

Samuel J. Sinclair
- Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Psychological Evaluation and Research Laboratory (PEaRL), 1 Bowdoin Square, 7th Floor, Boston, MA, USA
- Corresponding author.
Caleb J. Siefert
- Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Psychological Evaluation and Research Laboratory (PEaRL), 1 Bowdoin Square, 7th Floor, Boston, MA, USA
Hal S. Shorey
- Widener University, Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology, Chester, PA, USA
Daniel Antonius
- New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
Andrew Shiva
- New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
- John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA
Kendra Kehl-Fie
- Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Psychological Evaluation and Research Laboratory (PEaRL), 1 Bowdoin Square, 7th Floor, Boston, MA, USA
Mark A. Blais
- Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Psychological Evaluation and Research Laboratory (PEaRL), 1 Bowdoin Square, 7th Floor, Boston, MA, USA

Received 7 June 2008; received in revised form 17 October 2008; accepted 6 November 2008.

Abstract

Few studies have assessed the psychometric properties of the Personality Assessment Inventory short-form (PAI-SF) clinical scales, and none have conducted these evaluations using participants from psychiatric inpatient units. The present study evaluated item-level tests of scaling assumptions of the PAI-SF using a large (N=503) clinical sample of participants who completed the PAI during their admission to a psychiatric inpatient unit. Internal consistency reliability was high across scales, and tests of item-scale convergence and discrimination generally confirmed hypothesized item groupings. Scale-level correlations supported unique variance being measured by each scale. Finally, agreement between the PAI short- and full-form scales was found to be high. The results are discussed with regards to scale interpretation.