Assessment of drug attitudes in patients with schizophrenia: psychometric properties of the DAI Spanish version

Abstract

Introduction. The aim of the present study was to translate into Spanish and evaluate interrater reliability, internal consistency, and convergent validity with the Insight Treatment Questionnaire (ITAQ) and Buchanan’s compliance measure, and their relation with sociodemographic and clinical variables of the Spanish version of the Drug Attitudes Inventory (DAI).

Methods. The sample was made up of 80 patients diagnosed of schizophrenia, between 15 and 65 years old, of both genders, who voluntarily accepted to participate in the study and were informed and whose clinical conditions made the evaluation possible. Convergent validity with ITAQ was calculated in a subsample of 60 subjects and interrater reliability was evaluated in 20 cases.

Results. The men and all those who received concomitant treatment with anxiolytic and/or antidepressants obtained a higher score on the DAI. Interrater reliability coefficient was 0.61 (p < 0.001), and Chronbach’s alpha = 0.57. Correlation between DAI and ITAQ was r = 0.476, p <0.01, and patients with poor compliance according to Buchanan’s classification obtained less score in DAI than those with medium and high treatment compliance.

Conclusions. The Spanish version of the DAI demonstrated convergent validity and moderate reliability to evaluate treatment compliance in a Mexican sample of schizophrenic patients.