Citation

Bhat NA, Roopesh BN, Bhaskarapillai B, Benegal V. Asian J. Psychiatry 2019; 45: 66-71.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, 560029, India.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ajp.2019.09.001

PMID

31520882

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Self-report measures of sensation seeking though commonly used in research have not undergone factor structure or psychometric validation in Indian adolescents. The Brief Sensation Seeking Scale - Chinese (BSSS-C; Chen et al., 2013) is a less culture specific tool with excellent psychometric properties and presents a suitable option for use with Indian adolescents.

AIM: The present study aims to validate the factor structure, evaluate the psychometric properties, and examine the gender invariance of the BSSS-C in Indian adolescents.

METHODS: A community sample of adolescent, n = 2079, with mean age 17 years (SD = 1.71) completed the BSSS-C, the BIS/BAS, and the Adolescent Risky Behaviour scales.

RESULTS: The four factor structure of the BSSS-C exhibited good to excellent model fit, acceptable internal consistency reliability (α = 0.77) and, adequate construct as well as concurrent validity in Indian adolescents. Invariance testing revealed that the factor configuration and factor loadings of the BSSS-C were equivalent across the gender. Three of the four BSSS-C latent factors were amenable for mean comparisons across the gender.

CONCLUSION: BSSS-C is a reliable measure of the four dimensional model of sensation seeking in Indian adolescents. The gender differences in the BSSS-C factors are attributable to real differences in sensation seeking construct between male and female adolescents.

Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Adolescence; BSSS-C; Confirmatory factor analysis; Measurement invariance; Sensation seeking