Validación cruzada de la escala de expresión de ira en mujeres con VIH y población general

The aims of this study were to estimate the internal consistency and contrast the invariance (between a clinical sample and a general population sample) of the 4-factor model for the 24 items of the Anger Expression scale of the revised State-Trait-Anger Expression Inventory, and explore alternative models if there appears problems of internal consistency and factor definition. The scale was applied to 200 women living with HIV, and 120 women and 120 men from the general population. Items 3 and 17 showed problems of internal consistency. The correlation between anger-in factor and anger-out factor was unique in the confirmatory factor analysis. Horn's parallel analysis and Velicer's criterion indicated that the number of factors is three. After their extraction, the 2 expected factors of anger control and a factor of anger expression (union of anger-in factor and anger-out factor without items 3 and 17) were configured. The internal consistency of these 3 factors varied from .76 to .89. The fit to the data and the invariance properties of 3-factor model were acceptable from four indexes: χ2/df (<3), RMSEA and SRMR (<.10), and CFI (>.80, except for the model constrained on structural variances-covariances and the model constrained on measurement residuals when the invariance was contrasted). It is concluded that the scale should be reduced to 22 items and has a structure of three correlated factors with acceptable cross-validity.