Relationships between physical and psychological symptomatology in the 22-item Langner's scale

A systematic evaluation has been made of the validity and dimensionality of the 22-item Langner's scale, Italian version, in order to determine its suitability in epidemiological psychiatric surveys. Data from 1543 teachers working in Milan have been used for this purpose. The results show that the scale, when used as a continuous measuring instrument, successfully discriminates subjects suffering from psychological disturbance from the controls and that the scale's items seem to pertain only to the dimension of psychological disease. For this reason the distinction proposed by some authors between physiological and psychological dimensions of the scale would seem of little interest from a methodological point of view. On the other hand, the low specificity of the scale, if confirmed by further more specific studies, would require that caution was to be exercised when using it as a screening method.