Scrupulosity and obsessive-compulsive symptoms: confirmatory factor analysis and validity of the Penn Inventory of Scrupulosity.

Full Abstract

The current study examined scrupulosity in 352 unselected college students as measured by the 19-item Penn Inventory of Scrupulosity (PIOS). Confirmatory factor analysis yielded support for a two-factor model of the 19-item PIOS. However, item-level analyses provided preliminary support for the validity of a 15-item PIOS (PIOS-R) secondary to the removal of items 2, 6, 15, and 10. The two domains of scrupulosity identified on the PIOS-R consisted of the Fear of Sin and the Fear of God. Both domains and total scrupulosity scores were strongly related to obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Scrupulosity also showed significant, but more modest correlations with a broad range of other measures of psychopathology symptoms (i.e., state anxiety, trait anxiety, negative affect, disgust sensitivity, specific fears). However, only obsessive-compulsive symptoms and trait anxiety contributed unique variance to the prediction of scrupulosity. Examination of specific obsessive-compulsive symptom dimensions revealed that only obsessions contributed unique positive variance to the prediction of Fear of God. However, OCD obsessions, washing, and hoarding symptoms contributed unique positive variance to the prediction of Fear of Sin. These findings are interpreted in the context of future research elucidating the relationship between scrupulosity and obsessive-compulsive symptom dimensions.

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Author information

Author/s: Olatunji, Bunmi O (BO); Abramowitz, Jonathan S (JS); Williams, Nathan L (NL); Connolly, Kevin M (KM); Lohr, Jeffrey M (JM);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 301 Wilson Hall, 111 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37203, USA. olubunmi.o.olatunji(-atsign-)vanderbilt.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article

Journal: Journal of anxiety disorders (J Anxiety Disord), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-; vol 21 (issue 6) : pp 771-87

Dates: Created 2007/07/30; Completed 2007/10/19;

PMID: 17250990, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adolescent
Adult
Affective Symptoms - diagnosis; psychology
Analysis of Variance
Anxiety - diagnosis; psychology
Factor Analysis, Statistical
Fear - psychology
Female
Humans
Male

Male
Middle Aged
Models, Psychological
Models, Statistical
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - diagnosis; psychology
Personality Inventory - statistics & numerical data
Psychometrics
Questionnaires
Religion and Psychology
Reproducibility of Results

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