Disgust assessment: Factorial structure and psychometric properties of the French version of the Disgust Propension and Sensibility Scale Revised-12

RESEARCH ARTICLE Disgust assessment: Factorial structure and psychometric properties of the French version of the Disgust Propension and Sensibility Scale Revised-12 Caroline Novara ID1,2☯*, Julie Boiché1☯, Cindy Lebrun1☯, Alexandra Macgregor3‡, Yohan Mateo2‡, Stéphane Raffard ID1,3☯ a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Novara C, Boiché J, Lebrun C, Macgregor A, Mateo Y, Raffard S (2019) Disgust assessment: Factorial structure and psychometric properties of the French version of the Disgust Propension and Sensibility Scale Revised-12. PLoS ONE 14(1): e0210639. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0210639 Editor: Francesca Chiesi, University of Florence, ITALY Received: April 28, 2018 1 Univ Paul Valéry Montpellier 3, Univ. Montpellier, EPSYLON EA, Montpellier, France, 2 Groupe Ramsay Gds, Clinique RECH, Montpellier, France, 3 Service Universitaire de Psychiatrie Adulte, CHU Montpellier, Montpellier, France ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. ‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work. * Abstract The present study examined the internal and external validity of the French version of the 12item Disgust Propensity and Sensitivity Scale-Revised (DPSS-12) in a nonclinical sample from the general population. Two hundred and eighty-two participants completed the DPSSf-12 questionnaire as well as the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI), Anxiety Trait (STAI B), Obsessional Belief Questionnaire 44 items (OBQ 44), Obsessive Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R) and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Confirmatory Factor Analysis supported a 2-factor structure after two sensitivity items were removed. The 10-item scale showed good internal consistency, construct validity and test-retest reliability. These adequate psychometric properties make the DPSSf-10 appropriate for use by researchers and practitioners. Accepted: December 28, 2018 Published: January 28, 2019 Copyright: © 2019 Novara et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Funding: CIFRE device {2016/1119} signed with the psychiatric clinic RECH belonging to RAMSAY group, financed by the French Ministry of research and industry implemented by the French national association for research and technology. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Introduction Disgust is recognized as a universal emotion [1, 2], with distinct developmental features, behavioral, physiological dimensions and cognitive biases [3,4,5,6,7,8]. The theoretical model put forward by Rozin, Haidt, and McCauley [9]represents the main reference which has inspired literature on disgust over the last decades. From an evolutionary perspective, there is a broad consensus that disgust plays a key role in motivating behavior that reduces exposure to pathogens, and this concept has developed as a mediator of a dynamic adaptive system, a “behavioral immune system”, motivating disease avoidance [10, 11, 12, 13]. From a clinical perspective, disgust has been shown to be involved in the development and maintenance of several mental disorders including spider phobia [14, 15], contaminationbased Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder (OCD; [16, 17], Blood-Injury-Injection (BII) phobia [18], hypochondriasis [19], Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [20], sexual dysfunctions disorders [21] and eating disorders [22]. PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210639 January 28, 2019 1 / 12 Disgust assessment: French validation of the DPSSR-12 Despite the fact that disgust represents a public health concern [11], very few studies have examined disgust in certain countries, such as France. For example, it seems that emotional reactions linked to disgust played a major role regarding the consumption of beef during The Mad Cow disease crisis in France [23]. One of the reasons why French researchers and clinical practitioners have paid little attention to disgust is the lack of a formal measurement tool to assess individual’s tendencies to disgust reactions. Such a tool would enable examining the role of disgust in some disgust-relevant psychopathological conditions, thus enabling to verify the applicability of scientific knowledge concerning the role of disgust in psychopathology as it was demonstrated in other cultural spheres. The construction of a standardized measure instrument for the French general population is thus necessary, because it will not only enable investigations of the specific characteristics of disgust in France, but also provide elements upon shared cross- cultural components of disgust. It is now well admitted that disgust can be distinguished between Disgust Sensitivity (DS, i.e., the extent to which an individual is embarrassed to feel disgust) and Disgust Propensity (DP, i.e., trait disgust or the tendency to experience disgust frequently and intensely) [24, 25]. The Disgust Propensity and Sensitivity Scale (DPSS) has been specifically developed in English to assess both DS and DP and has been validated in various languages such as Japanese [26], Dutch [25], or Italian [27]. The original DPSS scale consisted of 32 items used to measure DS and DP with 16 items per factor. The scale demonstrated good psychometric properties, including a good internal consistency for both the total scale and its subscales [28]. Later factor analyses, however, conducted to the proposition of two abbreviated versions. First, Van overveld, De Jong, Peters, Cavanagh and Davey [25] proposed a 16-item scale (DPSS-R) with two subscales of 8 items for DS and DP factors. The item selection process was not only data driven, but also lead by theoretical considerations. Olatunji, Cisler, Deacon, Conolly, and Lohr [29] conducted exploratory analyses and found that 4 items loaded on a different factor, compared to the results obtained by Van overveld et al. [25]. Fergus and Valentiner [24] reported similar results, and suggested that a 12-item version, without these 4 items, guaranteed better psychometric properties. Taken together, the evidence provided by previous psychometric properties suggest that DPSS-12 is the most valid measure to assess sensitivity and propensity to disgust among available versions [30]. Recently, Goetz, Cougle, and Lee [31] suggested that heterogeneous items included in the DPSS-12 question the adequacy of the scale. Indeed, although the DPSS-12 did reveal a DS and a DP factor, two items did not load on them. The authors pointed out that the DPSS-10 produces a better consistency than a one-dimension version, or a two-or three -factor version with the 12 items. Altogether, recent work on the DPSS-12 supported the presence of 2 distinct (...truncated)