Abstract
Background and Objectives: Studies have linked the presence of hostility to some major diseases. However, it's believed that the conventional questionnaires are not capable of assessing the pure hostility. Hostile attitude scale (HAS) questionnaire is a newly developed means claimed to be appropriate in evaluation of pure hostility. This study aimed at evaluation of the HAS amongst a sample Iranian population.
Materials and Methods: One hundred and fifty male students of Tabriz Medical Faculty were questioned by the HAS and the hostility section of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory -2 (MMPI-2) questionnaires. The internal consistency of the HAS (Cronbach's alpha) and its criterion validity in comparison with the MMPI-2, as well as the correlation between the two scales was determined.
Results: The mean age of the recruited persons was 23.29±1.25 (21-26) years. The internal consistency of the original HAS was not acceptable (Cronbach's alpha=0.586). The question 14 turned to be a weak contributor to the scale's internal consistency and subsequently dropped from the scale. This revised HAS was not correlated with the MMPI-2 (Pearson's rho=-0.054, P=0.514). According to the revised scale, 15.3% of the students categorized as hostile (revised HAS score≥87.05).
Conclusion: This study showed that the HAS is not validated enough in Iranian male student population; however a revised version would be reliably employed for determination of the hostile people.