Reliability and validity of a short version of the Norwegian Awareness of Social Inference Test: a test of social cognition after traumatic brain injury

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to develop and test reliability and validity of a short version of the Norwegian Awareness of Social Inference Test to ease assessment of social cognition after traumatic brain injury. DESIGN: The least suitable items were identified statistically and from quality ratings made by clinical experts and persons with lived experience. Psychometric properties of the resulting short version were then estimated. SUBJECTS: Adults with (n = 101) and without (n = 50) traumatic brain injury. METHODS: Predetermined fit criteria from Rasch and confirmatory factor analysis identified least-fitting items. Further item reduction was based on expert ratings. The reliability of the short version was estimated with Cronbach's alpha for internal consistency and intraclass correlations for test-retest reliability. Construct validity was estimated based on differences in performance between individuals with and without traumatic brain injury (known groups validity), correlations with measures of social cognition (convergent validity) and with measures of cognitive ability (discriminant validity). RESULTS: The number of items was reduced from 59 to 28. Statistical analyses supported the short version's structure, and reliability and validity were similar to the full version. CONCLUSION: The short version has acceptable psychometric properties and is more feasible than the full version; its implementation is recommended.