Objectives : The Albany Panic and Phobia Questionnaire (APPQ) was developed to assess fear of activities that may elicit physical sensation in panic patients. There are three subscales (Agoraphobia, Social phobia, and Interoceptive fear) in the scale. The present study was conducted to determine the validity and reliability of APPQ in Korean population.
Methods : One hundred thirty five panic patients and 135 community samples and were enrolled in this study. All subjects completed a psychometric assessment package which included APPQ, ASI-R, ACQ, BSQ, BAT, BDI.
Results : 1) APPQ showed good internal consistency (Cronbach´s a=.95) and high test-retest reliabilities (r=.77). 2) APPQ showed moderate correlations with ASI-R (r=.67), ACQ (r=.67). BSQ (r=.59) and BAI (r=.64). 3) An exploratory factor analysis revealed 3 factors (Agoraphobia, Social Phobia and Intorceptive fear). 4) Panic patients (with or without agoraphobia) had significantly higher sores of the APPQ interoceptive subscale than the community samples (F,2,27)=24.27, P<.001).
Conclusion : We found that APPQ and its 3 subscales carry valuable internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent and construct validity. These results suggest that APPQ is a reliable and valid instrument to assess patients with panic disorder. (J Korean Neuropsychiatr Assoc 2004;43 (3) :329-336)
|