[Validation of the French Version of the Life Skills Profile with people suffering of schizophrenia].

Introduction: Since the discovery of neuroleptics and the reintegration of people with schizophrenia in the community, psycho-social reeducation became an essential part of the treatment. The Life Skills Profile is a tool of reference for assessment of the dimensions, which have an impact on the adaptation in community. Each item describes an observable behavior, written in common language, to allow the care-givers and the family to evaluate it without having a specific formation. The long version (39 items) is recommended for therapeutic interventions with a person and the short one (20 items) for large scale studies on outcome in community.

Aim Of The Study: In order to dispose of a measure of function and disability in schizophrenia, we have translated the Life Skills Profile (LSP) in French and tested the validity of this translation for the long version (39 items) and the short ones (16 and 20 items). The 4 dimensions of the 16-items version--"withdrawal", "self-care", "compliance" and "antisocial"--were used for people with mental disorders and the 20-items version enhanced with a fifth dimension "bizarre", especially useful for people with schizophrenia.

Method: 175 people suffering of schizophrenia (DSM IV, codes F20.0 to F20.5) were evaluated by their caregivers in 3 settings: psychiatric hospital, ambulatory care and sheltered homes. Confirmatory factorial analyses were performed to test the dimensional models and their psychometric characteristics were established.

Results: The original structure in 5 dimensions of the long version (39 items) is not confirmed. However, the short versions in 16 and 20 items were confirmed, without any modification. The required psychometric qualities of reliability and validity of the 20-items version were fulfilled. The inter-rater reliability ranged from 0.65 to 0.75 for the 5 dimensions; the test-retest reliability ranged from 0.80 to 0.91 and the internal consistency from 0.67 to 0.81. The validity was evaluated by comparison of the LSP scores upon living arrangements (people living in sheltered homes had lesser scores) and pathologies (19 people with severe major depression had higher scores).

Conclusion: The 39-items version of the Life Skills Profile was not validated in French. However, for clinical practice of social rehabilitation, this tool remains useful for a single person to check specific behaviors, which could hinder his/her integration into the community, to plan specific interventions and to evaluate changes, in addition with other scales. By the validation of the short version of the Life Skills Profile, an instrument is at disposal in French for outcome studies which allow to: 1) quickly assess the social functioning of person suffering of schizophrenia by a caregiver or a family member; 2) to detect insufficient skills in specific domains; and 3) to evaluate therapeutic efficiency.