Validation of the Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) Self-Report Version in Iranian School-Attending Adolescents

Abstract

The Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) scale was developed to advance the study of child and adolescent psychopathy, especially as it relates to conduct disorder. This study is the first to test the factor structure, measurement invariance, internal consistency, and validity of the Persian PSCD self-report version in a gender-mixed sample of 1,506 school-attending 11 to 18 years old youth (M age = 15.23; SD = 1.83; 49.60% boys). Confirmatory factor analysis supported the proposed four-factor hierarchical structure of the PSCD, though with 19 items loaded on grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, daring-impulsive, and conduct disorder components. This factor structure was also invariant across gender. The PSCD total and four components scores were internally consistent and exhibited the expected relations with proactive aggression, externalizing problems, anxiety and depression, and poor school performance, supporting the PSCD scores' convergent, discriminant, and criteria validity. The findings indicated that with some modifications, the Persian PSCD might hold promise for assessing psychopathy components in Iranian school-attending adolescents and may spark additional research in a variety of settings.

Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate all the people who helped us with the planning of the study and the data collection and the adolescent boys and girls who voluntarily participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

There was no conflict of interest in this study.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Ethics statement

This study was approved by the ethics committee of the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences (code number: IR.USWR.REC.1400.228).

Notes

1 To enhance comparison with prior work that used PSCD self-report version, all analyses reported from here onward were repeated whilst including all 24 items. Results from these analyses can be retrieved from the Supplementary Material but will neither be referred to in the Result section nor reflected upon in the Discussion.