[The Psychotic Anxiety Scale (PAS). Evaluation of inter-rater reliability and correspondence factorial analysis]

Abstract

We recently proposed the first scale for evaluating anxiety in psychotics: the "Psychotic Anxiety Scale" (PAS). The first version of this scale was tested in 45 psychotic patients. The multiple correspondence factorial analysis revealed that 4 factors account for respectively 50%, 18%, 17% and 10% of the variance. This scale thus evaluates anxiety along 4 axes: severity of the symptomatology, evolution in time, hetero-aggressiveness and self-aggressiveness. This analysis supports the hypothesis of the lack of specificity for the anxiety in psychotics, but distinguishes the nevrotic anxiety from the psychotic anxiety. The inter-rater reliability was assessed by a method which compared a rater with the others along 2 axes: the severity, and the profile of the assessment. The interrater reliability was unsatisfactory for only three items. They have been modified and a new version of the PAS is proposed.