Development of the Spanish version of the Parents' Self-Stigma Scale

Abstract

Background and Objectives

It is known that those who regularly interact with people with mental illness, such as family members, caregivers and mental health professionals, can be subjected to public stigmatization and that they may eventually develop self-stigmatization. Despite the relevance of parental self-stigma for the upbringing and treatment of children with psychiatric problems, only one instrument has been developed to identify it, the Parents' Self-Stigma Scale (PSSS). The lack of a similar instrument in Spanish motivated the present study, with the aim of developing a Spanish version of the PSSS.

Methods

After translating the PSSS, it was administered to two samples of parents of children who were treated consecutively in child-adolescent mental health centres in Reus and Valencia. The Reus sample was subjected to Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and the Valencia sample to Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), taking as reference the factor load matrix obtained in Reus. Temporal stability was estimated by calculating the ICC between the results obtained in two administrations of the questionnaire separated by four weeks. To estimate convergent validity, the correlation of the questionnaire score with the scores of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Schwarzer General Self-Efficacy Scale was calculated.

Results

The EFA showed the existence of three factors, “Bad Father”, “Self-blame” and “Self-shame”, which confirms the structural equivalence of the Spanish version and the original PSSS. Likewise, it was confirmed that the Spanish version is temporarily stable and valid.

Conclusions

The results obtained show that the Spanish version of the PSSS is semantically and psychometrically equivalent to the original PSSS, and that it has acceptable temporal stability and convergent validity.