The alexithymia questionnaire for children (AQC): French translation and validation study in a convenience sample of 80 children,Le questionnaire d’alexithymie pour enfants (QAE): Traduction franaise et étude de validation dans une population de 80 enfants « tout venant »
L'Encéphale. 2010-09-01; 36(4): 302-306
DOI: 10.1016/j.encep.2009.06.009
Read on PubMed
1. Encephale. 2010 Sep;36(4):302-6. doi: 10.1016/j.encep.2009.06.009. Epub 2009
Sep 19.
[The Alexithymia Questionnaire for Children (AQC): French translation and
validation study in a convenience sample of 80 children].
[Article in French]
Loas G(1), Dugré-Lebigre C, Fremaux D, Verrier A, Wallier J, Berthoz S, Corcos
M.
Author information:
(1)Service universitaire de psychiatrie, hôpital Pinel, CHU d’Amiens, route de
Paris, 80044 Amiens cedex 01, France.
INTRODUCTION: Alexithymia refers to a specific disturbance in psychic
functioning characterized by a limited ability to identify and communicate one’s
feelings. Development of specific rating scales and notably the well-validated
20-item Toronto alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) have allowed the study of alexithymia
in numerous samples of clinical or non-clinical subjects. Recently, Rieffe et
al. [Pers and Individ Differ 40 (2006) 123-133] have developed an alexithymia
questionnaire for children (AQC) basing on the TAS-20. The AQC comprised 20
items divided into three subscales: difficulty-identifying feelings (DIF),
difficulty describing feelings (DDF) and externally-oriented thinking (EOT).
Using a sample of 740 children and the Dutch version of the AQC the three-factor
structure of alexithymia was found, using confirmatory factorial analysis, but
the EOT factor showed low factor loadings and reliability.
OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to present the French version of the AQC and
to assess the psychometric properties of this version.
METHODS: Eighty children recruited from a convenience sample were included in
the study. There were 43 boys and 37 girls with a mean age of 11.81 (SD = 1.99,
range: 9-16). The validity and the reliability of the AQC were studied using a
confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA), the determination of the Cronbach alpha
coefficient, and the calculation of the correlations between each item and the
total score.
RESULTS: Adequation parameters of the CFA showed that the 3-factor solution of
the AQC was adequate (χ 2/df = 1.27, RMSEA = .039) although the EOT factor had
low factor loadings. The Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0.64 and 15 items had
significant correlations with the total score.
CONCLUSION: The three-factor model of the AQC was reported for the French
version of scale but the EOT factor had low validity. This result confirms the
recent study using the Dutch version of the AQC. Moreover, several studies using
foreign versions of the TAS-20 reported low reliability of the EOT factor. Thus,
other studies are necessary to explore the reliability of the EOT factor of the
French version of the AQC, and it’s recommended to use only the total score of
the AQC instead of the sub-scores.
Copyright © 2009 L’Encéphale, Paris. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All
rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1016/j.encep.2009.06.009
PMID: 20850601 [Indexed for MEDLINE]