Factor structure and reliability of the schizotypal personality questionnaire in a community sample of healthy Chinese subjects in Hong Kong

Abstract

The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ: Raine 1991) is a self-administered questionnaire for schizotypal features that has been validated in English-speaking community samples. We translated the SPQ into the Chinese language and piloted its use in a community sample of normal healthy volunteers in Hong Kong. The textural correctness of the Chinese translation was ensured through a back translation procedure. The questionnaire was then applied to a sample of 80 healthy volunteers screened to exclude family and personal history of psychiatric illnesses. The sample consisted of 31 male and 49 female subjects with a mean age of 33.9 years (range 18-54). The internal consistency was evaluated with Cronbach alpha coefficient. For the entire scale, alpha was 0.91. Alpha coefficients for individual subscales ranged between 0.52 to 0.79. Factor analysis of the 9 subscales yielded two factors accounting for 65.4% of the variance. The first factor consisted of constricted affect, no close friends, excessive social anxiety, suspiciousness, odd speech, and idea of reference. The second factor consisted of unusual perceptual experiences, odd belief/magical thinking, and odd or eccentric behavior. The internal reliability of the SPQ was comparable to that reported for English-speaking samples. The factor structure yielded two factors roughly corresponding to negative and positive features, respectively. There is a somewhat different loading pattern with idea of reference and suspicious loading with the negative factor. Potential cultural or sampling factors may account for this variation.