Psychometric properties of the mobility inventory for agoraphobia: convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity.
Aims of this study were (a) to summarize the psychometric literature on the Mobility Inventory for Agoraphobia (MIA), (b) to examine the convergent and discriminant validity of the MIA's Avoidance Alone and Avoidance Accompanied rating scales relative to clinical severity ratings of anxiety disorders from the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule (ADIS), and (c) to establish a cutoff score indicative of interviewers' diagnosis of agoraphobia for the Avoidance Alone scale. A meta-analytic synthesis of 10 published studies yielded positive evidence for internal consistency and convergent and discriminant validity of the scales. Participants in the present study were 129 people with a diagnosis of panic disorder. Internal consistency was excellent for this sample, α=.95 for AAC and .96 for AAL. When the MIA scales were correlated with interviewer ratings, evidence for convergent and discriminant validity for AAL was strong (convergent r with agoraphobia severity ratings=.63 vs. discriminant rs of .10-.29 for other anxiety disorders) and more modest but still positive for AAC (.54 vs. .01-.37). Receiver operating curve analysis indicated that the optimal operating point for AAL as an indicator of ADIS agoraphobia diagnosis was 1.61, which yielded sensitivity of .87 and specificity of .73.
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 3720 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6241, USA. dchamb@psych.upenn.edu
Dianne L
DL
Chambless
Brian A
BA
Sharpless
Dianeth
D
Rodriguez
Kevin S
KS
McCarthy
Barbara L
BL
Milrod
Shabad-Ratan
SR
Khalsa
Jacques P
JP
Barber
D000328:Adult; D000379:Agoraphobia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index