Presentazione della versione italiana del Personal Beliefs Questionnaire di Beck e Freeman

The Personal Beliefs Questionnaire (Beck & Freeman, 1990) was constructed to help clinicians to set a personality disorder diagnosis, and is comprised by 126 items and nine scales, which measure dysfunctional beliefs (Dependent, Avoidant, Passive-aggressive, Obsessive, Antisocial, Narcissistic, Istrionic, Schizoid and Paranoid). The Italian version, which kept the five-point Likert scale format, was administered to a sample of 412 adults, coming from many regions in Italy, without specific pathologies. Cronbach alpha coefficients for the nine scales (between 0.79 and 0.93) are as high as those found in the original American sample. The intercorrelations between scales are as high as in the original sample, and demonstrate that the nine scales are somewhat redundant, although they may efficiently help in setting a diagnosis. Some differences in the scores across gender and age, albeit statistically significant, are relatively small. However, the differences due to education level are somewhat stronger, and depict those people who have attained only lower education as more pathological.