title: Self-Compassion Scale (SCS): Psychometric Properties of The French Translation and Its Relations with Psychological Well-Being, Affect and Depression.
abstract: Over the past few years, the topic of self-compassion has attracted increasing attention from both scientific and clinical fields. The Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) was created to specifically capture this way of being kind and understanding towards oneself in moments of turmoil. In this article, we present a French adaptation of the SCS. We first explore the psychometric properties of this adaptation and then investigate its relation to psychological well-being. As in the original version of the SCS, the French adaptation has a strong 6-factor structure but a weaker hierarchical second order structure. However the bi-factor model yields a good omega index suggesting the relevance of a single score accounting for self-compassion. Moreover, there was a relation between the SCS and classical outcomes such as a positive relation with psychological well-being and negative relation with depressive symptoms. We then hypothesized that self-compassion would have a moderating role on the relation between affect and depression. This hypothesis was confirmed: expressing negative affect is correlated with depressive symptoms; however, being kind with oneself lowers depressive symptoms even when expressing negative affect. In conclusion, this research presents a valid self-compassion measure for French-speaking researchers and clinicians and outlines the need for further research on the concept of self-compassion.
authors.affiliation: Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Ilios
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kotsou
authors.affiliation: Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Leys
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics; D019455:Self Psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult