title: Investigating self-esteem in individuals with schizophrenia: relevance of the Self-Esteem Rating Scale-Short Form.
abstract: Studies investigating self-esteem in individuals with severe mental illness, either as a treatment goal, outcome or correlate to other variables, have increased over the past few years. One of the main difficulties in assessing self-esteem is the assessment itself, often measuring global and stable self-esteem as in the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, or requiring extensive training and long interviews. The present article aims at demonstrating the relevance of the French and English versions of the Self-Esteem Rating Scale-Short Form with individuals with severe mental illness. The instrument's reliability and validity were investigated in a sample of 250 French Canadian college students, 247 British college students and three samples of English- or French-speaking individuals with severe mental illness (N=254, N=150 and N=171). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that a shorter version of the instrument (20 items), with a positive and a negative self-esteem factor, had a great validity for all the samples studied. The Self-Esteem Rating Scale-Short Form, with its positive and negative self-esteem subscales, appears to be a valid and reliable self-esteem measure for individuals with mental health problems. Limitations of this study and future directions are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, 828 West 10th Avenue, Room 214, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V5Z 1L8. lecomte@interchange.ubc.ca
authors.forename: Tania
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lecomte
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Corbière
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Laisné
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012559:Schizophrenia; D012649:Self Concept; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires