Browsing by Author "Bailey, Allen J."

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    Bifactor Structure of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire Across the Schizotypy Spectrum
    (Guilford Press, 2021-08) Moussa-Tooks, Alexandra B.; Bailey, Allen J.; Bolbecker, Amanda R.; Viken, Richard J.; O’Donnell, Brian F.; Hetrick, William P.; Psychiatry, School of Medicine
    Despite widespread use in schizophrenia-spectrum research, uncertainty remains around an empirically supported and theoretically meaningful factor structure of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ). Current identified structures are limited by reliance on exclusively nonclinical samples. The current study compared factor structures of the SPQ in a sample of 335 nonpsychiatric individuals, 292 schizotypy-spectrum individuals (schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or schizotypal personality disorder), and the combined group (N = 627). Unidimensional, correlated, and hierarchical models were assessed in addition to a bifactor model, wherein subscales load simultaneously onto a general factor and a specific factor. The best-fitting model across samples was a two-specific factor bifactor model, consistent with the nine symptom dimensions of schizotypy as primarily a direct manifestation of a unitary construct. Such findings, for the first time demonstrated in a clinical sample, have broad implications for transdiagnostic approaches, including reifying schizotypy as a construct underlying diverse manifestations of phenomenology across a wide range of severity.
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    Race and Self-Reported Paranoia: Increased Item Endorsement on Subscales of the SPQ
    (Elsevier, 2023) Wolny, J.; Moussa-Tooks, Alexandra B.; Bailey, Allen J.; O’Donnell, Brian F.; Hetrick, William P.; Psychiatry, School of Medicine
    There is a dearth of research examining how individual-level and systemic racism may lead to elevated diagnostic and symptom rates of paranoia in Black Americans. The present study employed item response theory methods to investigate item- and subscale-level functioning in the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) in 388 Black and 450 White participants across the schizophrenia-spectrum (i.e., non-psychiatric controls, individuals with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or schizotypal personality disorder). It was predicted that (1) Black participants would score significantly higher than Whites on the Suspiciousness and Paranoid Ideation subscale of the SPQ, while controlling for total SPQ severity and relevant demographics and (2) Black participants would endorse these subscale items at a lower latent severity level (i.e., total SPQ score) compared to Whites. Generalized linear modeling showed that Black participants endorsed higher scores on subscales sampling paranoia (e.g., Suspiciousness and Paranoid Ideation), while White participants endorsed higher rates within disorganized/positive symptomatology subscales (e.g., Odd or Eccentric Behavior). IRT analyses showed that Black individuals also endorse items within the Suspiciousness and Paranoid Ideation subscale at lower latent severity levels, leading to inflated subscale scores when compared to their White counterparts. Results indicate prominent race effects on self-reported paranoia as assessed by the SPQ. This study provides foundational data to parse what could be normative endorsements of paranoia versus indicators of clinical risk in Black Americans. Implications and recommendations for paranoia research and assessment are discussed.
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    The Sensory Gating Inventory-Brief
    (Oxford University Press, 2021-06-01) Bailey, Allen J.; Moussa-Tooks, Alexandra B.; Klein, Samuel D.; Sponheim, Scott R.; Hetrick, William P.; Psychiatry, School of Medicine
    The Sensory Gating Inventory (SGI) is a 36-item measure used to assess an individual’s subjective ability to modulate, filter, over-include, discriminate, attend to, and tolerate sensory stimuli. Due to its theoretical and empirical link with sensory processing deficits, this measure has been used extensively in studies of psychosis and other psychopathology. The current work fills a need within the field for a briefer measure of sensory gating aberrations that maintains the original measure’s utility. For this purpose, large samples (total n = 1552) were recruited from 2 independent sites for item reduction/selection and brief measure validation, respectively. These samples reflected subgroups of individuals with a psychosis-spectrum disorder, at high risk for a psychosis-spectrum disorder, nonpsychiatric controls, and nonpsychosis psychiatric controls. Factor analyses and item-response models were used to create the SGI-Brief (SGI-B; 10 Likert-rated items), a unidimensional self-report measure that retains the original SGI’s transdiagnostic (ie, present across disorders) utility and content breadth. Findings show that the SGI-B has excellent psychometric properties (alpha = 0.92) and demonstrates external validity through strong associations with measures of psychotic symptomatology, theoretically linked measures of personality (eg, perceptual dysregulation), and modest associations with laboratory-based sensory processing tasks in the auditory and visual domains on par with the original version. Accordingly, the SGI-B will be a valuable tool for dimensional and transdiagnostic examination of sensory gating abnormalities within clinical science research, while reducing administrator and participant burden.