To Study The Reliability And Validity Of Defense Style Questionnaire

Objective: to verify the reliability and validity of Defense Style Questionnaire. Method: the defense style questionnaire (DSQ) was administered to 100 patients with schizophrenia, 100 patients with neurotics, and 100 controls. Result: (1) 46% entries need modification or to be removed completely. (2) The results of homogeneous reliability and test-retest reliability shows that scores of all subscales are higher than 0.85 (3) Schizophrenia group and neurotics group scored significantly higher than control group in immature and mature subscales, but showed no significant difference in the score of intermediate subscale. (4) Both schizophrenia and neurotics groups scored significantly higher than control group in most aspects of immature defense mechanisms and intermediate defense mechanisms. There was no significant difference between the schizophrenia and the neurotics groups in immature defense mechanisms and intermediate defense mechanisms. For mature defense mechanisms, schizophrenia group scored significantly lower in humor than the controls. No significant difference found in other factors. Neurotics group scored significantly lower in all 3 mature defense mechanisms than the controls. (5) Factor structure: the contribution rate of accumulative total of variance of the 3 factors in defense mechanism is 44.7%. All immature defense mechanisms and a portion of intermediate defense mechanisms constituents (undoing, avoidance, splitting, identification, and pseudo-altruism) are carried on F1; other intermediatedefense mechanisms constituents are carried on F2. Mature defense mechanisms constituents are carried on F3. The contribution rate of accumulative total of variance of the 4 factors in defense mechanism is 49.57%. 6 immature defense mechanisms constituents (projection, passive aggression, acting out, complaining, dissociation, and somatization) and 5 intermediate defense mechanisms constituents (omnipotence, identification, consuming, socialization, and pseudo-altruism) are carried on F1. Only 6 intermediate defense mechanisms constituents (reaction formation, undoing, idealization, splitting, denial, and anticipating) are carried on F2. F3 carries 2 immature constituents (fantasy and regression) and 2 intermediate defense mechanisms (repression and avoidance); F4 consists of 3 mature defense mechanisms constituents (sublimation, suppression, and humor). The contribution rate of accumulative total of variance of the 5 factors in defense mechanism is 54. 2%. The carrying components of the first 4 factors are the same as the 4-factor model, while pseudo-altruism is carried on F5 alone. The itemized factor analysis did not produce a 3-factor model that would agree with the theory of the 3-tier defense mechanism. Based on the 4 and 5 factor structure of the defense mechanism, we tried to summarize the item 5 factor model as follows: name Factor 1 as immature defense mechanism of expressing type, Factor 2 as immature defense mechanism of suppressing type, Factor 3 as intermediate defense mechanism of reacting type, Factor 4 as intermediate defense mechanism of expressing type, Factor 5 as mature defense mechanism.Conclusion: DSQ has a certain degree of reliability and validity, but many problems still exist, among them the structure problem of the scales is the most prominent. The 3-tier structure of the defense mechanism hypothesis does not agree with the structure of DSQ very well. Another problem is that the design of the questionnaire items is open to questions. We need to make efforts to address these problems.