Massachusetts General Hospital Hairpulling Scale: Validity and Reliability Study of the Turkish Form.

Objective: The aim of this study is to analyze the validity and reliability of the Turkish form of Massachusetts General Hospital Hairpulling Scale (MGH-HPS), which is used to measure the severity of Trichotillomania (TTM).

Methods: Fifty patients diagnosed with TTM according to the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria and fifty healthy controls participated in the study. The participants were asked to complete a sociodemographic questionnaire, the MGH-HPS-TR, the Clinical Global Impression (CGI), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11). The construct validity and the criterion validity of the MGH-HPS-TR were determined by means of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), respectively. The reliability analysis of the MGH-HPS-TR was assessed by calculating the Cronbach's α coefficient and the item total correlation coefficient. The values for the area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity and specificity were based on the ROC analysis.

Results: AFA and CFA results indicated a single factor structure with 7 items explaining 82.5% of the variance. The item/factor loadings were satisfactory with the best fit indeces. Correlations were found between the scores on the MGH-HPS-TR and the other scales used for criterion validity analyses. The internal consistency and the item-total correlation coefficients of the scale were found to be satisfactory. Based on a cut of point of ≥ 9, the scale had high power for discriminating between the patient and the control groups and high sensitivity and specificity.

Conclusion: This study showed that the MGH-HPS-TR can be used as a valid and reliable psychometric tool in Turkey.