Reliability and Validity of a Brief Measure of Loneliness with Anglo-American and Mexican American Adolescents

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Abstract
This article focuses on the operating characteristics of an eight-item loneliness scale developed by the second author. Data from a sample of 2,600 Mexican American and Anglo-American middle school students indicate the scale, the RULS-8, has good reliability and validity. Cronbach's alpha was .87 for Mexican American and .90 for Anglo-American students. Principal components factor analysis yielded one factor accounting for 55.5% of the variance, with little variation across groups. Correlations with measures of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, self-esteem, social skills, and other measures were in the direction and on the order of magnitude predictedfrom other studies of loneliness, providing evidence for construct validity. Overall, the RULS-8 appears to provide an acceptable and parsimonious measure of adolescent loneliness suitable for use in mental health surveys.

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