Factor Analysis of the Symptom Checklist-90

Abstract

A 90-item version of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist was completed by 327 unselected outpatients during one year at an urban state hospital clinic, and the results factor analyzed. Ten descriptive factors were found: agitated depression, somatic concerns, phobic fear, hostility, compulsions and mental blocks, feelings of guilt and inferiority, suspicion and mistrust, psychotic thinking, sleep disturbance, and fainting. The last three factors were based on only two or three items each. Anxiety did not emerge as a separate factor and only two of the proposed psychotic items formed a factor. Hypothesized new factors of phobic fears and hostility did, in fact, appear. Factors of guilt/inferiority and suspicion/mistrust were similar to expected factors of interpersonal sensitivity and paranoid ideation.