Development and Validation of the Scale of Illness Anxiety (SIA)

Zarmin Tariq; Saima Dawood

doi:10.32350/jarms.62.06

Authors

Zarmin Tariq University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan https://orcid.org/0009-0007-8440-0288
Saima Dawood University of the Punjab https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0081-0241

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32350/jarms.62.06

Keywords:

Illness Anxiety, IAD, Psychological Assessment, Culture, Indigenization

Abstract

It has been established that the manifestation of psychiatric disorders varies across cultures, which often presents difficulties during the clinical assessment, as indigenous expressions may differ. For this reason, the present study aimed to develop an indigenous measure to support the assessment of illness anxiety disorder (IAD), which entails culture-specific features of illness anxiety. The study consisted of two phases. In the first phase, the researcher developed a pool of items by exploring the existing literature, conducting a focus group discussion with clinical psychologists, interviewing general physicians and psychiatrists, and examining the clinical interview archives of a patient diagnosed with IAD. Following the development of an item pool, the initial version of the scale was obtained after item evaluation by researchers and expert clinicians, establishing content validity. This initial version had 24 items within three factors. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed on N = 229 university students, through principal component analysis using varimax rotation to examine this initial version, and suggested a single-factor structure with 23 items. This single-factor structure was later confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), performed using a sample of N = 240 university students. The final model consisted of 21 items and demonstrated an acceptable fit (CFI = .93; RMSEA = .05). The final scale, Scale of Illness Anxiety (SIA), had an excellent reliability value of α = .92. This version was further used to calculate cut-off and normative scores for a sample of N = 300 university students. This newly developed scale can be used for the assessment of IAD in both clinical and research settings in Pakistan. It was concluded to be a noticeable contribution to the indigenous literature, supporting culturally relevant psychological assessment.

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