Scale of Personal Problems in Everyday Life: Conceptual Justification and Psychometric Development

Abstract

Introduction. Theoretical and methodological issues of psychology of personal problem solving in everyday life have been underrepresented in Russian research literature. For the first time, the authors develop, pilot-test, and validate a new technique for diagnosing personal problems of everyday life.

Methods. The sample was comprised of 506 individual participants (aged 17-67 years) from general population and of 43 patients of the psycho-neurological department and the department of borderline states (aged 18-50 years). The study used the following techniques for construct validation of the pilot version of the Scale: (a) Life Satisfaction Scale; (b) Positive and Negative Affect Scale; (c) Five-Factor Personality Inventory; (d) Life Orientation Test (Russian modification); and (e) Hardiness Survey (Russian modification).

Results and Discussion. This section (a) describes the procedure of developing the Scale and eliminating non-valid items, (b) examines the factor structure of the questionnaire, (c) determines its construct, structural, and differential validity, and (d) discusses the results of studying age, gender, social, and demographic differences in the general level of problematization of life and the manifestation of specific types of everyday problems. The authors compared the findings obtained in pilot testing with those described in previous studies and demonstrated their similarity. The study provides diagnostic norms for the Scale scores. The proposed technique has great potential for further research (collecting empirical data in various subject areas of psychology) and psychodiagnostic (supporting the consultative and psychotherapeutic process and clinical practice) applications.

Conclusion. The authors draw the conclusion that the developed technique manifests relevant measurement properties and can be recommended for use in psychological research and practice. Further psychometric development of the Scale will involve determining test-retest reliability, assessing the impact of social desirability on the results, as well as differentiating and specifying test norms on larger samples.