Abstract
Objectives : We improved the scales for measuring the frequency of self-injurious behaviors in young adults. The existing scales contained only factors about behavior and some questions of the scales were directly expressing on self-injury, which gave examinees much stress and gave bias to the results. We modified the existing scales and created new categories of the scales as psychosocial factors to improve the accuracy of the measurement. Method : We made an improved questionnaire without direct expressions on self-injury And we added new questions including psychosocial factors into the questionnaire that were expressing indirectly on self-injurious behaviors and could capture the comprehensive personalities of self-injurors. Improved scales were administered to 209 undergraduates. Improved scales and STAI (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-JYZ), STAXI (State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory), and YGPI (Yatabe-Guilford Personality Inventory) were administered to 54 college students to test the correlation with personality. 13 samples of self-injurious behaviors in young adults were obtained and used for validation. Results Explanatory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis indicated that 20 questions derived from 4 categories ("Oppression state", "Self-reproach thinking", "Approval desire", and "Parent and child conflict") were most suitable to measure the tendency of self-injurious behaviors in young adults. Comparison with personality tests and an examination of seif-injurors in young adults suggested that these new scales were reliable in appropriate correlation with personality tests and were able to measure the tendency of self-injury in criterion-related validity. Conclusion : The improved scales we made were very effective to the research of self-injurious behaviors. We avoided direct expressions on self-injury and it reduced mental stress of respondents. Psychosocial factors made it possible to find the character of self-injuror comprehensively. These improved scales will reduce bias from the results of questionnaire and accordingly it is expected that the accuracy of the measurement will be enhanced.
