| Abstrakt: |
Objective: Alexithymia have the similar negative consequences for mental health and well-being in adolescence as in adulthood. In Turkey, there is a need for an alexithymia scale for clinical and research purposes in adolescents. Aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of 20- Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (Turkish TAS-20) in a Turkish adolescent sample. Methods: Turkish TAS-20 was administered to 948 adolescents aged between 12 and 17 years (439 male and 509 female). The participants were grouped as total sample (12-17 years old), younger (12-14 years old) and older (15-17 years old) adolescents. Cronbach's coefficients, mean inter-item correlations, intercorrelations of factors, confirmatory factor analysis, and measures of goodness-of-fit were evaluated for total scale, factor 1, factor 2, and factor 3. Results: The Cronbach's coef-ficients were 0.78 for the total scale, and 0.80, 0.68, 0.40 for the factor 1, factor 2, and factor 3, respectively. The Cronbach's coefficient for full scale was favorable for total group. The Cronbach's coefficient for factor 3 was reasonable for older (0.55 for 15-17 years old), but was low for younger adolescents (0.20 for 12-14 years old). All criteria of goodness-of-fit met the standards for adequacy- of-fit for all adolescent age groups. The mean inter-item correlation coefficients for the total sample, 12-14 year old group and 15-17 year old group were 0.15, 0.11, and 0.21, respectively and were in the acceptable range of 0.10 to 0.50. Discussion: The psychometric properties of Turkish TAS-20 for adolescents were comparable with the results of the reliability and validity study of Turkish TAS-20 in Turkish adults. However, caution should be taken when interpreting the outcomes, because factor 3 appears to have weak psychometric properties. Especially considering factor 3, we suggest that the Turkish TAS-20 best fits for older adolescents (15-17 years old). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
