Validation of the Arabic Version of the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE-42) in a Large Sample of Young Adults from the General Population

No self-report measures of psychotic experiences have been validated in the Arabic language. We aimed to examine the psychometric properties (i.e., factor structure, internal consistency, gender invariance, and discriminant validity as evidenced by correlations with psychopathology) of an Arabic translation of the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE-42) in a nonclinical population. A sample of 2024 Arabic-speaking young adults (aged 25.42 +/- 8.44 years, 57.9% females) from the general population in Lebanon completed an online questionnaire. The forward and backward translation method was applied. In terms of factorial structure, findings showed that the eight-factor model had the best model fit indices in comparison with the three-factor model, supporting that a four-factor solution for the positive symptoms dimension (bizarre experiences, persecutory ideas, perceptual abnormalities, and magical thinking) and a three-factor solution for the negative symptoms dimension (social withdrawal, affective flattening, and avolition) are appropriate in our sample. Besides, configural, metric, and scalar invariance was supported across gender. All factors yielded an acceptable level of reliability. Finally, all CAPE-42 scores moderately correlated with higher scores of depression, anxiety, stress, suicidal ideation, and smartphone addiction, which provides supporting evidence of the convergent validity of the Arabic CAPE items. The Arabic CAPE-42 proved to have adequate psychometric qualities, indicating its applicability to the general population as a brief screening tool for subthreshold self-reported psychotic symptoms. Making the Arabic version of the scale available might open the doors for future focus on the early intervention field in the Arab world.

Automated summary

This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of an Arabic translation of the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE-42) in a nonclinical population. The results showed that the Arabic CAPE-42 had good psychometric qualities and can be used as a brief screening tool for subthreshold self-reported psychotic symptoms in the Arab world.