Abstract

Objective: People with schizophrenia “adapt their identity” to the illness in order to live on their own in the community, which is considered essential. The aim of the present study was to measure and report the reliability of the original Scale of Identity Adaptation (SIA) for people with schizophrenia.
Method: Several social welfare corporations (welfare facilities), psychiatric clinics, and associations for patients with schizophrenia or their families in the Kanto area in Japan volunteered to participate. A total of 265 anonymous, self-administered questionnaires were mailed to the 10 facilities, which approved the research and agreed to refer research participants.
Results: Of the 265 questionnaires mailed, responses were collected from 87 participants (response rate = 33%). Among these, valid data of 77 participants were used for analysis (response rate = 89%), after deleting questionnaires with missing data. The sample consisted of 42 men (55%), 30 women (39%), and 5 non-responses (6%). The median age was 48 years (range: 20-80 years); the mean age was 48.5 (±2.12) years for men, and 45.7 (±15.56) years for women. Four factors were extracted from the 33 items of the SIA draft through primary factor analysis (Promax rotation). For the 33 items of the draft, exploratory factor analysis was performed for 18 items using item analysis. The Cronbach’s reliability coefficient for the four-factor structure was 0.83~0.90, confirming reliability.
Conclusions: The SIA developed in this study comprised four factors and 24 items; the SIA’s reliability was verified as the Cronbach’s α was found to be 0.75 or greater for the entire scale.