Date Presented 04/06/19
The Chinese Facial Emotion Recognition Test (CFERT) assesses the ability of seven emotions recognition from facial expressions in patients with schizophrenia. Items (168 photos) bank of CFERT were selected from the database of the “Taiwan Corpora of Chinese Emotions and Relevant Psychophysiological Data—Behavioral Evaluation Norm for Facial Expressions of Professional Performer.” CFERT has acceptable reliability and trivial practice effect for clinicians to measure repeatedly.
Primary Author and Speaker: Shu-Chun Lee
Contributing Authors: Ching-Lin Hsieh
PURPOSE: Patients with schizophrenia tend to have deficits in facial emotion recognition, which hampers their understanding of social situations and limit their work capacity, independence, and participation in a community. However, currently-available measures of facial recognition are affected by cultural differences, have unknown or poor psychometric properties, and have large practice effect. Therefore, the aim of the study was to develop a Chinese Facial Emotion Recognition Test (CFERT) and validate its test-retest reliability, random measurement error, practice effect, and ecological validity in patients with schizophrenia.
DESIGN: We developed the item bank for CFERT from the database of the “Taiwan Corpora of Chinese Emotions and Relevant Psychophysiological Data -- Behavioral Evaluation Norm for Facial Expressions of Professional Performer.” The touchscreen of the CFERT was designed and tested in patients with schizophrenia. A convenience sample of patients with schizophrenia was recruited. Patients were included in this study if they met the following criteria: (1) diagnosis of schizophrenia according to the criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, (2) age ≥ 20 years, and (3) scores of the Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE) ≥24 points and Clinical Global Impression Scale-Severity (CGIS) < 4 points.
METHOD: The reliability of the CFERT was examined. We validated the test-retest reliability, random measurement error, and practice effects of the CFERT. The Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for the total scores and subdomains of the CFERT was to examine the extent of agreement between repeated measurements. The standard error of measurement (SEM) of total and specific scores was calculated based on ICC values and standard deviation. The effect size was represented by practice effects.
RESULTS: A total of 168 colorful pictures were selected as items for the CFERT. All of the actions in these pictures were Asian and were agreed with experts, supporting the items can be used for Taiwanese. The CFERT had acceptable test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.62 –0.79), small to moderate random measurement error (SEM% = 8.5%–13.6%), and small to trivial practice effect (d = 0.1 –0.2).
CONCLUSION: The findings of this study indicate that the CFERT has acceptable test-retest reliability and trivial practice effect when applied to patients with schizophrenia. Our findings suggest that the CFERT may be used in research settings to demonstrate the changes in group-levels. Further validations are warranted.
References
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