Aims This study evaluated the psychometric characteristics of the Polish version of the PHQ-9 in detecting major depression (MDD) and ‘MDD and/or dysthymia’ in people with and without type 2 diabetes. Methods Participants were randomly selected from a diabetes outpatient facility (N = 216) and from among patients admitted to a medical center and psychiatric hospital (N = 99). The participants completed the PHQ-9. The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview were used to identify the presence of psychiatric symptoms. The optimal cut-offs for PHQ-9 in people with and without type 2 diabetes were investigated based on two methods: 1) Youden’s index which identifies cut-off points useful in scientific research; 2) a second method of two-stage screening for depressive disorders to provide guidance for clinical practice. Results The Polish version of the PHQ-9 is a reliable and valid screening tool for depression in people with and without type 2 diabetes. An optimal cut-off of ≥ 7 was indicated by Youden’s index and ≥ 5 by the two-stage method for screening for MDD and ‘MDD and/or dysthymia’ in the group with type 2 diabetes. A cut-off of ≥ 11 was optimal for screening for both MDD and ‘MDD and/or dysthymia’ among people without diabetes (Youden’s index). The two-stage approach suggested a ≥ 10 score for screening for MDD and ≥ 9 for screening for ‘MDD and/or dysthymia’ in people without diabetes. Conclusions A lower cut-off score of the PHQ-9 is recommended for people with type 2 diabetes as compared to the general population.

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Background. Corah's Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) is one of the most popular psychological scales used for diagnosing odontophobia worldwide. Despite being used by Polish researchers, it has never been validated in the Polish population. Also, there are no similar tools that could be used by dentists for screening.Objectives. The aim of this study was to validate and present the psychometric properties of the Dental Anxiety Scale adapted to Polish. The scale is a self-assessment tool designed to measure odontophobia and dental anxiety. Material and methods.The sample consisted of 162 adults. The adaptation to Polish of the DAS scale included a back-translation and a think-aloud study. The validation procedure incorporated 3 basic methods to be applied in the reliability analysis -the test-retest method, the statistical properties analysis of test items as well as a factor analysis. The general result of the responders was also compared to the anxiety-trait STAI scale and the neuroticism scale form IPIP-BMF-20.Results. The Cronbach's α was 0.9. The solution obtained in the exploratory factor analysis was a one-factor model, explaining 76.24% of the variance of responses. The test-retest gave a strong correlation (rho = 0.69, p < 0.001). The correlations between the DAS score, the anxiety-trait STAI score and the neuroticism scale form IPIP-BMF-20 were moderate, as expected. The percent of responders with odontophobia and intense dental anxiety was almost similar to the results of other studies. Conclusions.The psychometric characteristics of the Polish adaptation of the DAS scale are similar to those reported in the original version. The results allow us to recommend the method for scientific research and patient screening. However, further analyses are necessary to assess if the scores indicating odontophobia and dental anxiety are similar in Poland and in the USA.

Introduction Although psychological studies have suggested both the desired and paradoxical effects of unwanted thought suppression, we still know little about this mechanism. It has been proposed that individual differences in using specific strategies to suppress intrusions explain why contradictory effects of suppression are observed. The main aims of the study were to investigate the factor structure of the Polish version of Thought Control Questionnaire (TCQ) and verify whether this structure corresponds to the original version of the TCQ measurement. Methods Using the TCQ, which is a 30-item self-report measure, this research investigated individual thought control strategies to suppress intrusive thoughts in the general population. We used parallel analysis and theoretical interpretability to investigate the most appropriate factor structure of the inventory. To examine the validity of the Polish version of TCQ the correlational analysis of TCQ factors with other psychometric scales: Beck Depression Inventory, The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and The Metacognitions Questionnaire. The internal consistency of the TCQ subscales was also assessed by calculating the Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients for each factor. Results The resulting five-factor solution explained 51.86% of the total variance. The Polish version of TCQ consisted of five subscales yielding satisfactory reliability values: 1) Punishment (α = 0.725); 2) Distraction (α = 0.688); 3) Social Control (α = 0.780); 4) Worry (α = 0.788; 5) Re-appraisal (α = 0.70). Conclusion The five-factor solution was convergent with the dimensions that appeared in the original TCQ version and were observed in the most TCQ adaptations in various countries. Our findings support the psychological construct of thought-control strategies measured by TCQ and prove the satisfactory reliability of this self-report measure within a Polish population.