Development and psychometric validation of the Urdu-language Avoidant personality disorder scale for adults: a reliable and culturally relevant measure

Objective: To develop and validate an Urdu version of the Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD) scale, tailored to the Pakistani population, addressing a gap in culturally relevant psychological assessments. Methods: A cross-sectional, analytical design was used with data collected from 234 adults (107 males, 127 females) including 100 clinical and 134 non-clinical participants recruited from government and private institutions in Gujrat, Pakistan. The scale development involved generating an initial pool of 104 items, refining it to 91 through expert evaluation, and further reducing it to 62 items after a tryout phase with 104 participants, followed by pilot testing and expert review. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were employed to determine the scale’s factor structure. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha, and convergent validity was tested by correlating the scale with the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS). Results: The final AvPD scale comprised 37 items across nine subscales and demonstrated strong psychometric properties. EFA revealed the scale explained 68.79% of the variance, while CFA confirmed the factor structure with an excellent model fit (CFI = 0.924, RMSEA = 0.055). The overall reliability of the scale was high (Cronbach's α = 0.964), with subscale reliabilities ranging from 0.764 to 0.931. The scale exhibited moderate convergent validity (r = 0.644) with the SAS. Conclusion: The Urdu AvPD scale is a reliable, valid tool for assessing AvPD in Pakistan, with potential for clinical and research application. Future studies should explore its applicability across diverse populations to further establish its generalizability.