Speaker
Description
One of the pressing psychological concerns in the aftermath of the pandemic is the escalation of adjustment disorder cases. However, the assessment of adjustment disorder, particularly among college students, remained understudied. This study intends to address this gap by developing a new measure that: (1) examines the best-fitting adjustment disorder model as evidence of validity, (2) investigates if both frequency of symptom occurrence and intensity of symptom disturbance capture the severity of the disorder and, (3) determines an optimal threshold score for the proposed instrument. Utilizing cross-sectional survey data from 1,673 university students, confirmatory factor analyses showed that the scale is best represented by two factors: preoccupation with the stressor and failure to adapt. Moreover, criterion-related validation results reflected significant positive relationships to depression and anxiety and confirmed the utilization of both response formats (i.e., frequency of occurrence and intensity of disturbance). Finally, an optimal cut-off score of 32.29 for the newly devised instrument is recommended as an indicator of adjustment disorder provisional diagnosis. This study provides psychometric evidence of the utilization of the adjustment disorder symptom severity inventory scale. Additionally, the findings, impliedly, contribute to the limited literature on the assessment of adjustment disorder and assist clinicians and mental health practitioners in the development of more nuanced interventions addressing the symptom groups of adjustment disorder and its severity indices.
Keywords: ADSSI, adjustment disorder, college students, post-COVID
