Citation

Meerwijk EL, Mikulincer M, Weiss SJ. Psychiatry Res. 2019; 273: 746-752.

Affiliation

Department of Community Health Systems, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.psychres.2019.01.101

PMID

31185577

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to analyze the factor structure of the Tolerance for Mental Pain Scale (TMPS) in a sample of United States adults and examine its associations with suicidal behavior and intensity of psychological pain. Data were collected through an online general population survey (N = 225), and statistical analysis consisted of factor analysis and descriptive statistics of the data. Confirmatory factor analysis did not indicate a good fit with the originally proposed three-factor model. Subsequent exploratory factor analysis showed a good fit for a two-factor solution while enabling reduction of the scale to ten items, which we refer to as TMPS-10. The TMPS-10 scores were significantly lower for respondents with a lifetime history of attempted suicide and significantly inversely associated with the intensity of psychological pain. We recommend using the TMPS-10 to assess tolerance for mental pain for research purposes. With half the number of items of the original scale, the TMPS-10 has a lower response burden and minimizes the risk of over-inflating internal consistency due to redundant items.

Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Language: en

Keywords

Mental pain; Psychometrics; Suicide; Tolerance for psychological pain