Psychometric properties of the Italian Lifestyle Defense Mechanisms Inventory

We examined the reliability and validity of scores from the Italian adaptation of Lifestyle Defense Mechanisms Inventory (LMD) (Spielberger, 1988; Spielberger & Reheiser, in press), administered to a sample of 502 undergraduate Italian students. The internal reliability of the Italian LDM Inventory was comparable to that from samples using the English LDM Inventory (range: .89 to .94) suggesting that items from Italian instrument are addressing a unitary construct in this sample. We performed a Confirmatory Factor Analysis of a previously reported 2-factor solution for the Italian LDM Inventory subscales derived from different Italian samples (Comunian, Biasi, Giannini & Bonaiuto, 2002, 2003; Comunian, 2003). Results indicate that the established model for the Italian-speaking sample provided adequate fit in the present sample. Moreover, Italian LDM Inventory scores were significantly associated with gender. Bilingual participants completed the Inventory in both Italian and English, and their data revealed that LDM total subscale scores were similar across language administration. Our results provide the first data addressing the equivalence of Italian LDM Inventory and English LDM Inventory scores. We found that bilingual participants’ Italian and English LDM Inventory scores were not significantly different from one another. The present results suggest that the Italian LDM Inventory is an appropriate adaptation and yields scores consistent with those obtained from the English LDM Inventory.