Abstract

OVIEDO, Heidi Celina  and  CAMPO-ARIAS, Adalberto. An Approach to the Use of Cronbach's Alfa. rev.colomb.psiquiatr. [online]. 2005, vol.34, n.4, pp.572-580. ISSN 0034-7450.

Introduction: Scales are frequently used in clinical and research psychiatry. However, scales must be validated in order to know their psychometric properties when they are administered to special populations. Description: Establishing the internal consistency of a scale is an approach to validate its construct. That is, the quantification of the correlation among the items includes in a scale. Cronbach' alpha values between 0.70 and 0.90 suggest a good internal consistency. The Cronbach' alpha coefficient may be estimated when a three- to twenty-item one-dimensional scale is administered and particularly when it is difficult to conduct a validation study against a gold standard.

Keywords : Reliability; internal consistency; Cronbach's alpha; rating scales.

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