TRANSLATION AND VALIDATION-STUDY OF THE P REMORBID ADJUSTMENT SCALE FOR SCHIZOPHRENIC-PATIENTS

Premorbid adjustment is defined as the maximum level of psychological functioning achieved before the begining of psychotic symptoms in schi zophrenia. Premorbid adjustment has been related with a poor pharmacol ogic response, length of hospitalization and some presentation symptom atology. The aim of this study is to translate into Spanish and valida te the premorbid adjustment scale (PAS). Up to our knowledge, there is no Spanish translation of an instrument measuring this dimension. Met hods. Cases were recruited from the Psychiatric Hospital ''Fray Bernar dino Alvarez'' in Mexico City. Thirty subjects with DSM-III-R defined schizophrenia were included. Diagnosis were confirmed with the composi te international diagnostic interview (CIDI), Controls were selected f rom members of the working staff at the hospital, In ail subjects, the PAS was administered by a fully trained psychiatrist, following the i nstructions provided by the authors of the scale. Results. Internal co nsistency (Cronbach's alfa) of the instrument was 0.76. Schizophrenic subjects obtained significantly lower values in all PAS subscales when compared with normal controls. Conclusion. The Spanish version of the PAS showed an adequate internal consistency and discriminated ina sim ilar fashion to the original instrument between cases with schizophren ia and normal controls.