Factor structure and psychometric properties of the affective lability scale-short form in Chinese adolescents

Shuyin Xu; Yafei Chen; Yunjing Li; Siqi Yang; Yimei Lu; Liang Li; Mei Huang; Mohan Ma; Wenwen Ou; Guanyi Lv; Xiaotian Zhao; Yaqi Qin; Yumeng Ju; Yan Zhang; Lingjiang Li

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2022.881541

Factor structure and psychometric properties of the affective lability scale-short form in Chinese adolescents

Front Psychiatry. 2022 Nov 17:13:881541. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.881541. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Shuyin Xu¹, Yafei Chen², Yunjing Li¹, Siqi Yang¹, Yimei Lu¹, Liang Li¹, Mei Huang¹, Mohan Ma¹, Wenwen Ou¹, Guanyi Lv¹, Xiaotian Zhao¹, Yaqi Qin¹, Yumeng Ju¹, Yan Zhang¹, Lingjiang Li¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry and National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
² Xiangya Medical School, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.

Abstract

Objective: Previous studies on the reliability and validity of the Affective Lability Scale short-form (ALS-SF) have only been evaluated in adults, which may not be able to generalize to the adolescent population. We aimed to examine the factor structure, the reliability and validity of ALS-SF among Chinese adolescents and construct an adolescent form of ALS (ALS-AF).

Methods: A total of 1,439 middle school students were investigated with a broad survey including ALS-SF, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7), Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 10-item (CD-RISC-10) and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) behavior self-report. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted to investigate the structural validity of ALS-SF and construct ALS-AF. Cronbach's α was used to assess the internal consistency and reliability of the scale. Factor loading, Average Variance Extracted (AVE) and Composite Reliability (CR) were applied to measure the convergent validity and divergent validity. Besides, Correlation and regression analyses were used to explore the relationship between affective lability and depression, anxiety, NSSI and resilience.

Results: Factor analysis failed to support the original three-factor model of 18-item ALS-SF and confirmed the three-factor model of 15-item ALS-AF. The ALS-AF showed good internal consistency as well as strong convergent and discriminative validity. Besides, ALS-AF was positively correlated with PHQ-9, GAD-7 and self-harm, and was negatively associated with resilience.

Conclusion: Our study shows that the ALS-AF has good reliability and validity for testing affective lability in Chinese adolescents.

Keywords: adolescents; affective lability scale-short form; depression; reliability; validity.