Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties of the Illness Attitude Scale (IAS) for Iranian Samples

Present research aimed to explore factor structure and psychometric properties of the Illness Attitude (IA) Scale. The study is therefore, performed through three stages. In the first stage, for parallel factor analysis, 929 Shahed University students, selected through cluster sampling, filled out the questionnaire during the academic year 2001-2002. At this stage, the IA scale conceptualized as a five – factor measure i.e. fear of illness and disease, frequency of treatment, hypochondriacally beliefs and symptom effects, health behavior, and thanaphobia. In the second stage, the reliability of the scale was measured by determining Cronbach Alpha and reliability coefficient by test-retest and mean inter-item correlation. Results showed an appropriate reliability for the scale. The third stage of the study focused on discriminant and construct validity of IAS scale. Results showed that the following four factors fear of illness and disease, frequency of treatment, hypochondriacal beliefs and symptom effects, and health behavior, can significantly discriminate psychological patients from healthy subjects which is considered as an appropriate discriminant validity of these four factors. In order to determine the construct validity of IAS Scale, Pearson’s Product-Moment correlation between this scale and three other scales i.e. hypochondriacal subscale of MMPI-2, Bodily complaints subscale of SCL-90-R and bodily symptoms subscale of GHQ was calculated. The result indicated an appropriate construct validity of the IAS factors except for the thanaphobia factor. As a result, the present research provides the evidence for rightness of factor structure, and the acceptable reliability of these factors, as well as emphasizing the validity of the factors except the thanaphobia factor.