Validation of a Greek adaptation of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale.
BACKGROUND
The purpose of the current investigation was (1) to test whether the 3-factor structure of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) corresponding to the theoretical conceptualization of the alexithymia construct could be recovered in a Greek translation of the scale (the TAS-20-G), (2) to assess if a 3-factor structure provides a better fit to the TAS-20-G compared with the recently proposed alternative factor structures, and (3) to evaluate the internal reliability of the TAS-20-G.


METHODS
The English version of the TAS-20 was translated into Greek and then back-translated and modified until cross-language equivalence was established. The Greek version was then administered to 340 university students. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted, and 4 different factor structure models were compared. Internal consistency and item-to-scale homogeneity of the TAS-20-G and its factor scales were also evaluated.


RESULTS
The 3-factor model provided a good fit to the data and proved superior to alternative 1-, 2-, and 4-factor models. Apart from a coefficient alpha below the recommended range for the externally oriented thinking factor, the TAS-20-G and its factor scales demonstrated adequate internal consistency and homogeneity.


CONCLUSIONS
The TAS-20-G is a valid and reliable measure of alexithymia in university students and may be suitable for investigations of alexithymia in other Greek-speaking population samples.
Tsaousis
Ioannis
I
Department of Psychology, University of Crete, Crete 74100, Greece. tsaousis@psy.soc.uoc.gr
Taylor
Graeme
G
Quilty
Lena
L
Georgiades
Stelios
S
Stavrogiannopoulos
Marios
M
Bagby
R Michael
RM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006115:Greece; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics