Perceived coercion in psychiatric inpatients: a validation study of the Romanian-language version of the Admission Experience Survey

The MacArthur Admission Experience Survey was developed to evaluate perceived coercion in psychiatric inpatients and comprises of three subscales: "Perceived coercion", "Negative pressures" and "Voice". The present study aims to evaluate the psychometric properties of a Romanian language version of the AES (R-AES) and to identify predictors for higher perceived coercion. We developed the R-AES using a translation/back-translation procedure and administered it to 137 patients admitted to the "Profesor Doctor Alexandru Obregia" psychiatric hospital in Bucharest, Romania. Discriminatory power was evaluated by comparing the scores of voluntarily and involuntarily admitted patients. The R-AES showed satisfactory internal consistency (Crohnbach's alpha = 0.92). Principal components analysis disclosed a three-factor solution explaining 69.1% of variance. Factor components roughly corresponded to the original subscales. Higher scores were associated with involuntary admission, objective coercive measures, younger age, frequent past hospitalisations, treatment non-compliance, psychosis, mania, greater disease severity, aggression, and presentation by police or ambulance.