[Reliability and validity of Turkish version of magical ideation scale in university students]

Schizoptypal disorder shares many clinical, neuropsychological and neurophysiological features with schizophrenia and is included in the schizophrenia spectrum. Patients with schizotypal disorder or individuals with mild schizotypal features are therefore highly valuable in the study of neuropsychological and neurophysiological characteristics of psychosis, and in particular schizophrenia, as they are likely to be free of the potential confounding factors of medication, chronic hospitalization and manifest psychosis. We report here the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the Magical Ideation Scale (MIS), a self-report questionnaire that focuses on delusion-like beliefs and hallucination-like experiences and that has been used to quantify an important dimension of schizotypy.

Internal consistency and high cut-off scores were studied in 332 medical students. Forty-three students were readministered the scale 3 weeks later, and 96 received the Paranormal Belief Scale-R (PBS-R) along with the MIS, in order to measure test-retest reliability and convergent validity, respectively.

The internal consistency of the scale is satisfactory with a Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.78. Test-retest scores are highly correlated (r= 0.84). The high cut-off score is 21 for males, 23 for females, and 22 for the whole sample. Convergent validity was established by the significant correlation between the total MIS and PBS-R scores (r= 0.61).

The scale is valid and reliable for studies that require a standard quantification of schizotypal signs and symptoms in young university students.