Assessing disorganized attachment in Mexican individuals with psychosis-risk symptoms: initial psychometric evaluation of a Spanish version of the revised Psychosis Attachment Measure

ABSTRACT

Background

Knowledge of the role of attachment in psychosis would be enhanced by research in low- and middle-income countries and increased availability of measures of disorganized attachment. The Psychosis Attachment Measure is a widely-used self-report questionnaire recently expanded to incorporate the assessment of disorganized attachment. The present study examined the psychometric properties of a Spanish-language adaptation of the revised Psychosis Attachment Measure (PAM-R) in Mexican individuals reporting psychosis-risk symptoms.

Methods

The sample comprised 264 individuals with a positive screen for high risk for psychosis, drawn from a more extensive general population study. Participants completed a battery of questionnaires via an online survey.

Results

An exploratory factor analysis of the 23 items yielded three factors interpreted as representing anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment. Four items had poor loadings on all factors and were not retained. The dimensions demonstrated adequate internal consistency, but convergent validity was only supported for the anxious and disorganized attachment dimensions. Disorganized attachment showed medium-sized associations with childhood maltreatment, attenuated positive symptoms, and symptom-related distress.

Discussion

The findings provide initial support for using the disorganized subscale in the Mexican context and for continuing the examination of the measure to further determine its research and clinical utility in Spanish-speaking populations.

KEYWORDS:

• Attachment style
• disorganized attachment
• assessment
• psychosis risk
• childhood maltreatment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17522439.2024.2335211

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by CONAHCYT-PRONACES, [grant 3205].