Autism-Open Access
Open Access

A preliminary investigation of the factorial validity of the fourdimensional symptom questionnaire (4DSQ) in the Zimbabwean working population

European Autism Congress

March 14-15, 2019 | Zagreb, Croatia

Douglas Zvomuya

American Psychiatric Association,Zimbabwe

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Autism Open Access

Abstract :

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factorial validity of the 4DSQ in a Zimbabwean working population. The 4DSQ is a recently developed measure of distress, depression, anxiety and somatisation developed by Terluin (1996). An online survey was administered through SurveyMonkey® to employees on the database of a local consulting firm. A convenient sample (N=819) provided the data set for this analysis. The Cronbach’s α for the 4DSQ ranged from 0.89 to 0.96 based on the whole sample. The sample was randomly split into two samples; test sample (N=410) and holdout sample (409). The data on the test sample was subjected to exploratory factor analysis yielding 4 factors. When subjected to confirmatory factor analysis 3 factors fitted the data better than the 4 factor model. The three factors in the new scale are depression, anxiety and somatisation excluding the distress factor. The 3 factor scale was then validated on holdout sample and it was replicated. The Cronbach’s α for the 3 factor scale ranged from 0.78 to 0.96. Results are discussed in relation to the Zimbabwean context.

Biography :

Douglas Zvomuya is an Occupational Psychologist issuing authority Allied Health Professions Council Zimbabwe, Birkbeck. He did his education form University of London, UK.

E-mail: douglas.zvomuya@yahoo.com douglas.zvomuya@outlook.com