Assessing the Construct Validity of the Chinese-Version Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief on Male and Female Undergraduate Students Wei-Fen Ma 1 & Hsien-Yuan Lane 2 & Li-Chi Chiang 3 * & Po-Lun Wu 4 Shu-Ju Yang 5 & Guochuan E. Tsai 6 1 PhD, RN, Associate Professor, School of Nursing, China Medical University, and Adjunct Supervisor, Department of Nursing, China Medical University Hospital, Taiwan, ROC & 2 PhD, MD, Professor, Institute of Clinical Medical Science, China Medical University, and Chief, Department of Psychiatry, China Medical University Hospital, Taiwan, ROC & 3 PhD, RN, Professor, School of Nursing, National Defense Medical Center, Taiwan, ROC & 4 MD, Department of Psychiatry, China Medical University Hospital, Taiwan, ROC & 5 MD, Department of Psychiatry, Kuang Tien General Hospital, Taiwan, ROC & 6 PhD, MD and Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, Torrance, CA, USA. Introduction The schizotypal personality has been defined as ‘‘a pattern of acute discomfort in close relationships, cognitive or percep- tual distortions, and eccentricities of behavior’’ (American Psychiatric Association, 2000, p. 685). The 22 dichotomous items of the self-report Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire- Brief (SPQ-B) have been used widely to measure schizotypal personality traits (Raine & Benishay, 1995). The SPQ-B as- sesses three dimensions of the schizotypal personality trait, including cognitiveYperceptual deficits, interpersonal defi- cits, and disorganization. The SPQ-B has shown adequate reliability and validity for the general population and clinical patients in numerous studies (Bora & Arabaci, 2009; Compton, Chien, & Bollini, 2010; Ito, Okumura, & Sakamoto, 2010). The increasingly wide application of the SPQ-B for the measuring of schizotypal personality traits in research and clinical settings has highlighted the existence of gender-based differences in these traits. Men tend to earn higher scores on negative schizotypal personality traits than women (Guo, Collinson, Subramaniam, & Chong, 2011). In addition, men ABSTRACT Background: Screening for the schizotypal personality trait is one strategy to identify people who may be susceptible to early psychosis or be at high risk for prodromal psychosis. The Schizo- typal Personality Questionnaire-Brief (SPQ-B) has been widely used to assess the schizotypal personality and has been trans- lated into Chinese. However, the psychometric properties of the Chinese-version scale have yet to be evaluated. Purpose: This study evaluates the construct validity of the Chinese-version SPQ-B on a sample of male and female under- graduate students in Taiwan. Methods: A cross-sectional design with convenient sampling was used for this study. The data were collected using the Chinese- version SPQ-B between October 2008 and June 2009. Partici- pants included 513 male and 675 female undergraduate students in Taiwan. The factor construct validity of the scale was examined by confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling with SPSS AMOS version 17 software. Results: The results show that the three-factor model fits the data better than the one-factor model for both male and female participants. The male participants scored significantly higher than their female counterparts in terms of total scale, interper- sonal subscales, and disorganized subscales. Conclusions/Implications for Practice: The Chinese version of the SPQ-B adequately achieves three-factor construct validity for undergraduate students. The scale may be used to screen for the schizotypal personality trait in both male and female college students to identify those at an elevated risk for mental illness. KEY WORDS: construct validity, instrument development, measures, schizotypal personality. BRIEF REPORT The Journal of Nursing Research h VOL. 00, NO. 0, MONTH 2014 1 Accepted for publication: December 12, 2013 *Address correspondence to: Li-Chi Chiang, No.161, Minquan E. Rd. Sec. 6, Neihu Dist., Taipei City 11490, Taiwan, ROC. Tel: 886-2-87923100 #18765; E-mail: lichichiang@gmail.com Cite this article as: Ma, W. F., Lane, H. Y., Chiang, L. C., Wu, P. L., Yang, S. J., & Tsai, G. (2014). Assessing the construct validity of the chinese-version schizotypal personality questionnaire-brief on male and female undergraduate students. The Journal of Nursing Research, 00(0), 00Y00. doi:10.1097/jnr.0000000000000068