Development of the Davos Assessment of Cognitive Biases Scale (DACOBS)

van der Gaag, Mark; Schütz, Chantal; ten Napel, Angela; Landa, Yulia; Delespaul, Philippe; Bak, Maarten; Tschacher, Wolfgang; de Hert, Marc (2013). Development of the Davos Assessment of Cognitive Biases Scale (DACOBS). Schizophrenia Research, 144(1), pp. 63-71. Elsevier 10.1016/j.schres.2012.12.010

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Objective:
Cognitive problems and biases play an important role in the development and continuation of psychosis. A self-report measure of these deficits and processes was developed (Davos Assessment of Cognitive Biases Scale: DACOBS) and is evaluated in this study.

Methods:
An item pool made by international experts was used to develop a self-report scale on a sample of 138 schizophrenia spectrum patients. Another sample of 71 patients was recruited to validate the subscales. A group of 186 normal control subjects was recruited to establish norms and examine discriminative validity.

Results:
Factor analyses resulted in seven factors, each with six items (jumping to conclusions, belief inflexibility bias, attention for threat bias, external attribution bias, social cognition problems, subjective cognitive problems and safety behavior). All factors independently explained the variance (eigenvalues > 2) and total explained variance was 45%. Reliability was good (Cronbach's alpha = .90; split-half reliability = .92; test–retest reliability = .86). The DACOBS discriminates between schizophrenia spectrum patients and normal control subjects. Validity was affirmed for five of seven subscales. The scale ‘Subjective Cognitive problems’ was not associated with objective cognitive functioning and ‘Social cognition problems’ was not associated with the Hinting task, but with the scale measuring ideas of social reference.

Conclusions:
The DACOBS scale, with seven independent subscales, is reliable and valid for use in clinical practice and research.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	04 Faculty of Medicine > University Psychiatric Services > University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy > Psychotherapy
UniBE Contributor:	Tschacher, Wolfgang
Subjects:	600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health
ISSN:	0920-9964
Publisher:	Elsevier
Language:	English
Submitter:	Daniela Zurkinden
Date Deposited:	09 Apr 2014 15:39
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 14:31
Publisher DOI:	10.1016/j.schres.2012.12.010
PubMed ID:	23332365
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/46442