Examination of formal thought disorder and its clinical correlates with the Turkish Version of the Thought and Language Disorder Scale (TALD-TR) in schizophrenia

• Published in: Comprehensive psychiatry 2019-08, Vol.93, p.7-13
• Main Authors: Mutlu, Emre, Yazıcı, M. Kâzım, Barışkın, Elif, Ertuğrul, Aygün, Gürel, Ş. Can, Gürkan, Şahin, Göka, Erol, Yağcıoğlu, A. Elif Anıl
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Child & adolescent mental health; Child & adolescent psychiatry; Child psychology; Cross-Sectional Studies; Depression; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Female; Formal thought disorder; Humans; Language disorders; Language Disorders - diagnosis; Language Disorders - epidemiology; Language Disorders - psychology; Language processing; Male; Mania; Mental depression; Middle Aged; Neurosciences; Poverty; Principal Component Analysis; Principal components analysis; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales - standards; Psychopathology; Reproducibility of Results; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - diagnosis; Schizophrenia - epidemiology; Schizophrenic Psychology; Sociodemographics; Speech; Thinking; Translating; Turkey - epidemiology
• ISSN: 0010-440X; 1532-8384
• DOI: 10.1016/j.comppsych.2019.06.003

Formal thought disorder (FTD) is considered to be a fundamental feature of schizophrenia. This study aims to analyze psychometric properties of the Turkish version of “Thought and Language Disorder Scale (TALD)” and investigate the relationship between FTD and various clinical characteristics in patients with schizophrenia. TALD was adapted into Turkish and applied to a total of 149 participants of which 114 had DSM-5 psychiatric diagnoses (schizophrenia N = 70, mania N = 20, depression N = 24) and 35 were healthy controls. Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, Young Mania Rating Scale, and Clinical Global Impression were administered to detect illness severity. The principal component analyses revealed that the Turkish version of TALD (TALD-TR) consisted of four factors including the Objective Positive (OP), Subjective Negative (SN), Objective Negative (ON) and Subjective Positive (SP) symptom dimensions which were in line with the original TALD factorial structure. It was concluded that TALD-TR shows strong construct validity and high interrater reliability. The correlation analyses with TALD-TR and PANSS showed that there are positive correlations between the TALD-TR total score and the PANSS total and subscale scores. Each diagnostic group showed the distinct pattern of FTD. The mania group exhibited the highest mean total score in the OP, whereas the schizophrenia group exhibited the highest mean total score in the ON factor. In the schizophrenia group, the severity of FTD correlated positively with duration of illness and negatively with age at onset of illness. Adaptation of TALD into different languages seems to be possible, bringing in an international tool for research on FTD. •TALD-TR distinguished the objective and subjective dimensions of thought disorder.•Formal thought disorder was closely associated with the PANSS thought content items.•The mania group had the highest Objective Positive factor score of thought disorder.•Clozapine users had greater Objective Negative factor score than non-clozapine users.