The application of the abbreviated metacognitive assessment scale in patients with schizophrenia and neurosis in China

Objective To explore the application of the abbreviated metacognitive assessment scale(MAS-A) in patients with schizophrenia and neurosis. Methods With the aid of the Indiana Psychiatric Illness Interview (IPII), 115 schizophrenic patients and 89 neurotic patients were assessed using the MAS-A, and compared the group difference of MAS-A scores. All patients were also tested with the theory of mind picture sequencing task (ToM-PST). The criterion-related validity was evaluated using of correlated MAS-A total-score with ToM-PST total-score. 31 neurotic patients and 34 schizophrenic patients were measured after one month to compute the test-retest reliability. Results The reliability analysis showed that the Cronbach α-coefficients for MAS-A of total sample, schizophrenic group and neurotic group were 0.829, 0.826, 0.823, respectively. The test-retest reliability of MAS-A and four factors were 0.722, 0.541, 0.650, 0.615 and 0.525 (all P<0.01). The validity analysis also showed that the correlation coefficient between the total scores of MAS-A and ToM-PST were 0.470, 0.383, 0.292 (all P<0.01) in total sample, schizophrenia and neuroses patients, respectively. Additionally, the scores of MAS-A of schizophrenia patients were significantly lower than that of neurotic patients. Conclusion MAS-A has good reliability and validity and is a valuable tool in application to metacognitive assessment for chinese mental population. Key words: Metacognition; Schizophrenia; Neuroses; Reliability; Validity