Psychometric Properties and Factor Structure of the Arabic Translation of the Brief Negative Symptom Scale

The current study embarked on an Arabic translation of the BNSS and an examination of its psychometric properties in a Tunisian sample of inpatients and outpatients with schizophrenia.

Care recipients with schizophrenia (N = 178) completed administrations of the A-BNSS, the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia (CDSS), and the St. Hans Rating Scale (SHRS).

The A-BNSS produced strong evidence for the reliability of the scale with Cronbach's alpha and interrater ICC estimates for the full measure and its subscales falling in the good to excellent range. The A-BNSS showed excellent convergent validity with large correlations of its full scale and subscale scores with the SANS and PANSS-negative symptom scores. The A-BNSS showed minimal correlations with PANSS-positive and emotional distress scores, CDSS depression, and SHRS extrapyramidal symptoms, suggesting strong discriminant validity. CFA favored a five-factor model consistent with the NIMH consensus domains.

The study supports the robust psychometric properties of the Arabic translation of the BNSS rendering it promising for the assessment of negative symptoms in Arabic-speaking individuals with schizophrenia. Along with preexisting translations, this extension of the language repertoire of the BNSS would support cross-cultural deconstruction of the phenomenology of negative symptoms and outcome evaluation in global clinical trials.