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The three-factor structure of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient Japanese version in pregnant women

BACKGROUND: There is a rising interest in perinatal mental health studies, and proper psychometric tools to assess autistic traits among this population in Japan are vital. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to clarify the optimal factor structure of the AQ as part of a perinatal mental health research pro...

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Autores principales: Zain, Ekachaeryanti, Fukui, Naoki, Watanabe, Yuichiro, Hashijiri, Koyo, Motegi, Takaharu, Ogawa, Maki, Egawa, Jun, Nishijima, Koji, Someya, Toshiyuki
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10644054/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38025415
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1275043
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author Zain, Ekachaeryanti
Fukui, Naoki
Watanabe, Yuichiro
Hashijiri, Koyo
Motegi, Takaharu
Ogawa, Maki
Egawa, Jun
Nishijima, Koji
Someya, Toshiyuki
author_facet Zain, Ekachaeryanti
Fukui, Naoki
Watanabe, Yuichiro
Hashijiri, Koyo
Motegi, Takaharu
Ogawa, Maki
Egawa, Jun
Nishijima, Koji
Someya, Toshiyuki
author_sort Zain, Ekachaeryanti
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: There is a rising interest in perinatal mental health studies, and proper psychometric tools to assess autistic traits among this population in Japan are vital. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to clarify the optimal factor structure of the AQ as part of a perinatal mental health research project. METHODS: We used the Japanese version of the AQ (AQ-J) to measure autistic-like traits in pregnant women. Participants were 4,287 Japanese women who were pregnant or who had given birth within the last month. We performed exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using the first sample group (n = 2,154) to obtain factor structures for the final item selections. We performed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using the second sample group (n = 2,133) to obtain a model with good fit, then compared the model to all previously proposed models to determine the best-fitting model. RESULTS: The EFA analysis identified a model consisting of 25 items distributed across three factors. Cronbach’s alpha for the total 25-item AQ-J, 9-item “Social interaction” factor, 11-item “Non-verbal communication” factor, and 5-item “Restricted interest” factor was 0.829, 0.829, 0.755, and 0.576, respectively. McDonald’s omega and its 95% confidence interval were 0.826 (0.821–0.836), 0.835 (0.821–0.837), 0.755 (0.744–0.766), and 0.603 (0.556–0.596), respectively. CFA confirmed that the three-factor structure had an acceptable fit (goodness of fit index: 0.900, comparative fit index: 0.860, root mean square error of approximation: 0.066). These findings indicated that the three-factor model was better than the 13 existing models. CONCLUSION: The findings are discussed in relation to the adequacy of the AQ-J for assessing autistic traits in perinatal women. We recommend the use of this 25-item, three-factor AQ-J model for this population owing to its superiority to all previous models.
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spelling pubmed-106440542023-10-31 The three-factor structure of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient Japanese version in pregnant women Zain, Ekachaeryanti Fukui, Naoki Watanabe, Yuichiro Hashijiri, Koyo Motegi, Takaharu Ogawa, Maki Egawa, Jun Nishijima, Koji Someya, Toshiyuki Front Psychiatry Psychiatry BACKGROUND: There is a rising interest in perinatal mental health studies, and proper psychometric tools to assess autistic traits among this population in Japan are vital. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to clarify the optimal factor structure of the AQ as part of a perinatal mental health research project. METHODS: We used the Japanese version of the AQ (AQ-J) to measure autistic-like traits in pregnant women. Participants were 4,287 Japanese women who were pregnant or who had given birth within the last month. We performed exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using the first sample group (n = 2,154) to obtain factor structures for the final item selections. We performed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using the second sample group (n = 2,133) to obtain a model with good fit, then compared the model to all previously proposed models to determine the best-fitting model. RESULTS: The EFA analysis identified a model consisting of 25 items distributed across three factors. Cronbach’s alpha for the total 25-item AQ-J, 9-item “Social interaction” factor, 11-item “Non-verbal communication” factor, and 5-item “Restricted interest” factor was 0.829, 0.829, 0.755, and 0.576, respectively. McDonald’s omega and its 95% confidence interval were 0.826 (0.821–0.836), 0.835 (0.821–0.837), 0.755 (0.744–0.766), and 0.603 (0.556–0.596), respectively. CFA confirmed that the three-factor structure had an acceptable fit (goodness of fit index: 0.900, comparative fit index: 0.860, root mean square error of approximation: 0.066). These findings indicated that the three-factor model was better than the 13 existing models. CONCLUSION: The findings are discussed in relation to the adequacy of the AQ-J for assessing autistic traits in perinatal women. We recommend the use of this 25-item, three-factor AQ-J model for this population owing to its superiority to all previous models. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-10-31 /pmc/articles/PMC10644054/ /pubmed/38025415 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1275043 Text en Copyright © 2023 Zain, Fukui, Watanabe, Hashijiri, Motegi, Ogawa, Egawa, Nishijima and Someya. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychiatry
Zain, Ekachaeryanti
Fukui, Naoki
Watanabe, Yuichiro
Hashijiri, Koyo
Motegi, Takaharu
Ogawa, Maki
Egawa, Jun
Nishijima, Koji
Someya, Toshiyuki
The three-factor structure of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient Japanese version in pregnant women
title The three-factor structure of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient Japanese version in pregnant women
title_full The three-factor structure of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient Japanese version in pregnant women
title_fullStr The three-factor structure of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient Japanese version in pregnant women
title_full_unstemmed The three-factor structure of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient Japanese version in pregnant women
title_short The three-factor structure of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient Japanese version in pregnant women
title_sort three-factor structure of the autism-spectrum quotient japanese version in pregnant women
topic Psychiatry
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10644054/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38025415
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1275043
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