Construction and validation of a scale of stigma against individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia

Antecedents: Individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia are not just dealing with their diagno-ses. They are facing stigma due to their pathology. International research has proposed that individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia suffer more stigma than other types of mental issues. However, in Chile, a valid scale is not available to measure stigma against individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. Objectives: To fill this gap, this research is aimed to develop and validate a scale to measure stigma against individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. Meth-ods: Two stages were completed to achieve the research objective. First, a pool of items was developed based on the three critical components of stigma, cognitive, affective and behav-ioural. Three independent judges were asked to assess the content aspects of the content validity of the items. Second, following an instrumental and longitudinal design with non-probabilistic with a quota sampling by gender (N = 607) the validity and reliability of the final scale was assessed. Results: A one-dimensional scale composed of 22 items showed good statistical boundaries. The observed factor loadings suggest that the items adequately repre-sent the dimension (λ>, 6), and the reliability estimates are optimal (α>, 8; ω>, 8). Results suggest that the scale can be used the respondents’ gender irrespectively.