title: [Italian validation of Multiple Visual Analogue Scales for Bipolarity (MVAS-BP) of Ahearn and Carroll].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim of the present study was to validate the Italian version and to assess the clinimetric properties of Ahearn and Carroll's Visual Analogue Scales for Bipolarity (MVAS-BP), a self-rating questionnaire measuring affective state.
  
  
  METHODS
  MVAS-BP consist of 26 items: 1 item assesses overall mood, 2 items anger and 23 items are based on the Carroll model of bipolar disorder (Consummatory Reward, Incentive Reward, Central Pain, Psychomotor Regulation). MVAS-BP have been translated into Italian and administered with Kellner's Symptom Questionnaire (SQ), Ryff's Psychological Well-Being Scales (PWB), and Cloninger's Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) to a normative sample of 450 people. The assessment was repeated after one month. Test-retest reliability, means scores, differences according to sociodemographic variables and correlations among the scales of MVAS-BP, SQ, PWB and TPQ were performed in order to assess clinimetric properties.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Test-retest coefficients were highly significant. Significant sex differences were found in the scales of consummatory reward, central pain, psychomotor regulation and anger. MVAS-BP scales were significantly related with symptom and well-being scales, but with very low correlation coefficients, and only with one personality dimension, TPQ Harm Avoidance.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  MVAS-BP has been found to possess clinimetric properties and to record specific and different information from those investigated by other questionnaires.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Psicologia, Universita di Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Staccini
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tomba
authors.forename: Fedra
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ottolini
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ruini
authors.forename: Giovanni Andrea
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Fava
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D059026:Diagnostic Self Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult