Adalberto Campo-Arias1. 1. Instituto de Investigación del Comportamiento Humano, Bogotá, Colombia. Electronic address: campoarias@comportamientohumano.org.
Abstract
OBJECT: Establishment of the frequency of reporting internal consistency of the scales in research published in the Colombian Journal of Psychiatry (CJP) between 2006 and 2010. METHOD: A descriptive study was carried out which computes the report of internal consistency (Cronbach alpha) of scales in research published as original papers in the CJP. Validation studies were excluded. RESULTS: A total of 114 articles were published and 30 of them were included in the analysis. Researchers applied 67 scales for measuring some variables and Cronbach alpha of 20 (29.8%) scales was reported in the participating population. CONCLUSIONS: In the CJP, few published studies that apply measuring scales for variables report internal consistency in the analyzed sample. It is necessary for authors to report the internal consistency of used scales in the study population to guarantee the validity of conclusions.
OBJECT: Establishment of the frequency of reporting internal consistency of the scales in research published in the Colombian Journal of Psychiatry (CJP) between 2006 and 2010. METHOD: A descriptive study was carried out which computes the report of internal consistency (Cronbach alpha) of scales in research published as original papers in the CJP. Validation studies were excluded. RESULTS: A total of 114 articles were published and 30 of them were included in the analysis. Researchers applied 67 scales for measuring some variables and Cronbach alpha of 20 (29.8%) scales was reported in the participating population. CONCLUSIONS: In the CJP, few published studies that apply measuring scales for variables report internal consistency in the analyzed sample. It is necessary for authors to report the internal consistency of used scales in the study population to guarantee the validity of conclusions.