Pathways to inflated responsibility beliefs, responsibility attitudes and obsessive-compulsive symptoms: factor structure and test of a mediational model.
BACKGROUND
Inflated responsibility has been hypothesized as an important influence on OCD symptoms. According to Salkovskis and colleagues (1999) there are in turn five developmental pathways that lead to inflated responsibility. Coles and Schofield (2008) proposed the Pathways to Responsibility Beliefs Scale (PIRBS) as a measure of these pathways.


METHODS
In the present study the psychometric properties of an Icelandic translation of the PIRBS were evaluated and its factor structure was studied in a confirmatory factor analysis. Further it was tested whether responsibility mediated between pathways to responsibility beliefs and OCD symptoms.


RESULTS
While neither a four nor a five-factor structure of the PIRBS was found to be wholly satisfactory; support for the latter was slightly better. Correlations of the PIRBS scales with measures of responsibility and obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms were moderate as expected. Support was found for a mediating role of responsibility attitudes between pathways measured by the PIRBS and OCD symptoms in support of Salkovskis and colleagues' theory (1999).


CONCLUSIONS
The PIRBS is a promising approach to study the developmental precursors of inflated responsibility and OCD symptoms but its factor structure may need a revision.
Smári
Jakob
J
Department of Psychology,University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland. jakobsm@hi.is
Thornorsteinsdóttir
Astdís
A
Magnúsdóttir
Lilja
L
Smári
Unnur J
UJ
Olason
Daníel P
DP
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012941:Social Responsibility; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D055815:Young Adult