The Development of the Social Cognition Assessment Tool for Psychiatric Rehabilitation of Chronic Schizophrenia Patients

Abstract

Objectives: 1) To develop a Social Cognition Assessment Tool for Psychiatric Rehabilitation of Chronic Schizophrenia Patients (SCAT-CS) and 2) to examine psychometric properties of SCAT-CS. Materials and methods: This study employed research and development design. It was divided into 2 phases: 1) development of SCAT-CS, and testing of content validity, and 2) examination of construct validity and concurrent validity with standard psychological tests. The samples were 140 chronic schizophrenia patients, aged 18-59 years, receiving service at Srithanya Hospital in February 2024. Construct validity was analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis. Reliability was estimated by internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. Concurrent validity was tested with WAIS-III by Pearson’s correlation. Results: The first draft consisted of 31 items across 4 domains; 1) emotion perception 2) theory of mind 3) social perception, and 4) attributional bias. After examining content validity, twenty-two items were remained. Subsequently, item analysis retained 20 items. Cronbach's alpha coefficients are 0.86, 0.74, 0.80 and 0.72, respectively. Confirmatory factor analysis found that the model fit with empirical data. Concurrent validity found that every domain significantly correlated with Picture Arrangement, Picture Completion and Object Assembly subtests in WAIS-III. Conclusion: The SCAT-CS consisted of 4 domains including 20 items. These findings can support the psychometric properties, validity and reliability for using SCAT-CS for assessing social cognition in chronic schizophrenia patients. Further research for examining the cut-off point could be conducted.