The Adult Separation Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire (ASA-27) is the most widely used self-report assessment of adult separation anxiety (ASA). Despite its widespread use, relatively little is known about its psychometric properties, specifically whether it is unidimensional, its degree of precision (or information) across latent levels of ASA, the functioning of individual items in general and of DSM-derived versus non-DSM-derived items in particular, and whether the measure is invariant across gender and time. We addressed these issues in a sample of 509 adult women and 407 adult men from the local community participating in a longitudinal study of temperament and psychopathology in children. Two items from the ASA-27 were removed so that the measure met the item response theory (IRT) assumption of unidimensionality. Findings from a graded response model for categorical items suggested that the ASA-27 assesses ASA most reliably at moderate to high levels and that the DSM-derived items were more closely related to latent ASA than the non-DSM-derived items. Invariance tests employing single-factor confirmatory factor analysis models suggested that the measure is partially invariant across gender and time at the unique factor level, with fewer than 7% of parameters freed in both cases; this implies that the means and variances of the latent factors and differences in the observed responses are attributable to true differences in ASA. Future work should replicate these findings in a sample that includes individuals with a wider range of ASA severity and may consider removing additional items that provide little or redundant information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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成人分离焦虑症状问卷的心理计量学分析：项目功能以及性别和时间的不变性。

成人分离焦虑症状问卷（ASA-27）是使用最广泛的自我报告方法，用于成人分离焦虑（ASA）。尽管已广泛使用，但对其心理测量特性知之甚少，特别是它是否是一维的，其在ASA潜在水平上的精确度（或信息）程度，一般情况下单个项目的功能以及DSM衍生与非DSM的功能尤其是衍生的项目，以及衡量指标在性别和时间方面是否不变。我们从当地社区的509名成年女性和407名成年男性参与了儿童气质和心理病理学纵向研究的样本中解决了这些问题。从ASA-27中删除了两个项目，以便该措施符合一维项目响应理论（IRT）的假设。从分类项目的分级响应模型中发现，ASA-27在中等至高水平下最可靠地评估了ASA，与DSM衍生的项目相比，DSM衍生的项目与潜在ASA更密切相关。使用单因素验证性因子分析模型的不变性测试表明，在唯一因子水平上，该度量在性别和时间上部分不变，在两种情况下释放的参数均不到7％；这意味着潜在因素的均值和方差以及观察到的响应中的差异可归因于ASA的真实差异。未来的工作应该在一个样本中复制这些发现，样本中包括ASA严重性范围较大的人员，并可以考虑删除提供很少或多余信息的其他项目。