A SELF-REPORT SCALE FOR MENTAL AND MOTOR SLOWNESS - PRELIMINARY-RESULTS

A self-report slowness scale (SRSS) was developed to rate the severity of mental and motor slowness with items approximating general activit ies of daily life: housekeeping, personal care, recreation and leisure , cognitive skills, and reaction time. The scale was administered to 9 5 persons infected with HIV and 24 uninfected persons in the context o f a comprehensive neurobehavioral evaluation. Analysis of internal con sistency for the entire sample (Alpha = .9485) provided strong evidenc e of internal reliability, and strong evidence of stability was provid ed by SRSS scores taken 6 months apart, r(58) = .69, p < .001. Constru ct validity evidence was also strong: point biserial correlations of i tem-to-total scores for the entire sample were all above .77 (p < .001 ), and factor analysis for the HIV+ subjects yielded one factor accoun ting for 66.7% of the variance. Moderate evidence for criterion-relate d validity was illustrated through significant correlations of SRSS ra tings with neuropsychological tests in which timing and memory are pri mary features.