The aim of this study was to translate into Polish and establish the psychometric properties of the 11-item De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale (DJGLS). The translation process followed the recent guidelines for the crosscultural adaptation of questionnaires and was tested through analysis of differential item functioning (DIF) by the use of the Poly-SIBTEST method and bilingual groups. The essential unidimensionality was checked by bifactor analysis. Reliability was assessed by internal consistency and homogeneity analysis, and external construct validity by correlation with several external scales. The research indicated no differences in item performance between the final Polish and English versions, and confirmed the earlier findings indicating that the DJGLS measures two dimensions of loneliness (social and emotional) which generalize into a higher-order factor of a general sense of loneliness (bifactor structure). Reliability (α = .89) and homogeneity (H = .47) proved to be high. Research showed that the instrument has a satisfactory validity criterion: Correlation with the UCLA Loneliness Scale r = .82; with Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale r = –.56; and with the Beck Depression Inventory r = .46 (all p < .01). The Polish adaptation of the DJGLS thus presents a bifactor structure, with good levels of internal consistency, homogeneity, and construct validity.

Our findings point at the reduced life satisfaction as a key aspect of the subjective experience of the stigma of schizophrenia.

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The present investigation is the first examination of the factor structures, reliability, external validity, longitudinal invariance, and stability of the De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale (DJGLS), as used with early adolescents. It is based on a two-wave, large, representative sample of Polish primary school pupils. The results demonstrate that the model most reflective of the factor structure of the DJGLS is the bifactor model, which assumes the occurrence of one, highly reliable, general factor (overall sense of loneliness) and two, relatively irrelevant, subfactors. Essential unidimensionality (the general factor accounting for three fourth of the common variance) suggest that the interpretation of the subfactors over and above the general factor is inappropriate. The longitudinal confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the bifactor structure of the DJGLS is invariant over time. Correlations with self-rated loneliness, sociometric acceptance/rejection, social self-efficacy, identification with class group, family structure, and gender provide support for the validity of the DJGLS. This implies that it could be used as a measure of loneliness in adolescence, which does not involve references to the school context, making it possible to conduct studies that go beyond school period and compare the intensity of the feeling of loneliness in that group with other age groups.