EXAMINATION OF THE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF THE PERSONALITY-ASSESSMENT INVENTORY

The reliability, discriminant validity, and construct validity of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) - a multidimensional self-repor t measure of abnormal personality traits - were examined within the Au stralian context. Subjects included 151 normals, 30 alcoholics, and 30 schizophrenic patients. A subsample of 70 nonpsychiatric adults respo nded to the PAI items twice over a test-retests interval of 28 days. T he resulting median retest coefficient was 0.7, indicating less than o ptimal stability. The median alpha (KR21) coefficient was 0.8, suggest ing somewhat narrow measurement scales. A significant multivariate mai n effect was obtained across groups after the effects of age and gende r were removed. Multiple comparisons for each of the PAI scales reveal ed significant differences between the respective groups, as discussed . A higher-order scale factoring did not strongly support the purporte d PAI structure. In reanalyses of the correlation matrices included in the Professional Manual, the purported PAI factor structure was unabl e to be replicated for the standardization clinical sample (N = 1246), and a confirmatory factor analysis using the normative (validation) c orrelational data (N = 1000) revealed poor fit indices, raising furthe r concerns about construct validity.