The Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire (HDHQ):A psychometric evaluation in psychiatric outpatients

The HDHQ continues to be used by researchers who seek to assess punitiveness and its elements in association with various mental states. Although it is now over a decade since this instrument emerged and although it is extensively used, chiefly in the U.K., subsequent evaluations of its factorial validity and internal consistency reliability have been notably absent from the literature. An examination of data from a heterogeneous Dutch sample of psychiatric outpatients (N = 295) led to 4 main conclusions:1. (1) the dimensions of AH, CO and PH are fairly well distinguishable from each other; by contrast, the SC and DG scales are clearly not;2. (2) there is poor evidence in the present S sample of unidimensionality of the test, indicating that the general use of a Total Hostility score is highly questionable; although EXTRA and INTRO are related, they should be treated as distinct concepts;3. (3) all subscales have adequate internal consistency to be useful for research purposes;4. (4) correlations with extraneous measures and scale-level factor analysis of these show the (sub)scales to evidence clear (divergent and convergent) construct validity.In addition, findings are reported which lend some support for discriminant validity of the DH scale. Replication of the presented findings with distinct samples and differing methods is urgently needed