[The Pathological Buying Screener: Validation in a Clinical Sample]

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Pathological buying disorder (BSD) is a condition characterized by excessive and uncontrollable buying behavior.
• Accurate screening tools are essential for identifying individuals with BSD in clinical populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the psychometric properties of the 13-item Pathological Buying Screener (PBS) in a diverse clinical sample.
• To determine the reliability, validity, and diagnostic accuracy of the PBS for identifying pathological buying disorder.

Main Methods:

• The PBS was administered to 413 treatment-seeking patients with various mental disorders, including BSD.
• Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) assessed the factor structure, and Cronbach's alpha determined reliability.
• Convergent, divergent, and discriminative validity were explored using other measures, and ROC analysis defined a cut-off point.

Main Results:

• CFA indicated a good model fit for both one-factor and two-factor structures.
• The PBS total score demonstrated good convergent, divergent, and discriminative capacity.
• At a cut-off of ≥29, the PBS achieved 98% sensitivity and 94.7% specificity for detecting BSD.

Conclusions:

• The Pathological Buying Screener (PBS) exhibits robust psychometric properties.
• The PBS total score is a reliable and valid instrument for use in clinical settings to screen for pathological buying disorder.