Measurement Invariance of Two Measures of Alexithymia in Students Who Do and Who Do Not Engage in Non-suicidal Self-Inju
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Measurement Invariance of Two Measures of Alexithymia in Students Who Do and Who Do Not Engage in Non-suicidal Self-Injury and Risky Drinking Danyelle Greene 1
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Penelope Hasking 1 & Mark Boyes 1 & David Preece 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI) and risky drinking have a shared emotion regulatory function. Alexithymia is an important risk factor for both behaviors. However, it is conceivable that the emotional processing difficulties thought to underlie both behaviors may contribute to differences between people who self-injure or drink in a risky fashion, and those who do not, when interpreting alexithymia items on self-report questionnaires. Therefore, measurement invariance should be established before attributing scale score differences between groups to true differences in alexithymia. We examined the validity, factor structure, and measurement invariance of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire (PAQ) among 640 university students (Mage = 20.39, SD = 1.86) with and without histories of NSSI and risky drinking. The original factor structure of the TAS-20 was not supported; however, the addition of a reverse-scored item method factor improved fit. The intended five-factor model of the PAQ was supported. We found configural, full metric, and full scalar invariance for the PAQ and a revised-TAS-20. Both the PAQ and TAS-20 demonstrated good concurrent, convergent, and discriminate validity. Our results suggest that all subscales of the PAQ and the difficulties identifying feelings and difficulties describing feelings subscales of the TAS-20 can be used confidently to discern differences in alexithymia in the context of NSSI and risky drinking. However, the externally orientated thinking subscale of the TAS-20 had poor internal consistency and several inadequate factor loadings. We discuss the utility of the externally orientated thinking subscale (TAS-20). Keywords Non-suicidal self-injury . Risky drinking . Measurement invariance . Alexithymia . Emotion regulation
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is the deliberate damage of one’s body tissue, without suicidal intent, for reasons not socially or culturally endorsed (International Society for the Study of Self-Injury 2018). Methods of NSSI include but are not limited to, cutting, severe scratching, and selfbattery. It is estimated via meta-analytic techniques that, internationally, 13.4% of community-based young adults and 20% of young adults attending university have engaged in NSSI in their lifetime (Swannell et al. 2014). Although individuals report engaging in NSSI for various reasons (e.g. anti-dissociation, self-punishment), affect regulation motives are the most consistently endorsed
* Penelope Hasking [email protected] 1
School of Psychology, Curtin University, Kent St, Bentley 6102, Australia
(Taylor et al. 2018). People also commonly report engaging in risky drinking (i.e., consuming alcohol in a pattern that increases a
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