Adaptation and French validation of physical anhedonia scale: PAS (Chapman and Chapman, 1978)

This work presents the validation of the French version of the Physical Anhedonia Scale (PAS). The scale's validity, fidelity and reliability were studied in two groups: 61 normal subjects, 61 subjects who met RDC criteria for major depressive disorder. The internal consistency and reliability were determined by the Kuder-Richardson coefficient (KR 20) which values were 0.7 in the control group and 0.83 in the depressed group. The internal consistency was also studied by the correlation between each item and the PAS total score using the point biserial coefficient. 54 items on 61 showed a significant correlation coefficient which ranged from 0.18 to 0.59. For the concurrent validity we studied the correlation (Pearson correlation coefficient) between the PAS and the French version of the Fawcett-Clark Pleasure Capacity Scale (FCPCS). The values were -0.31 (p = 0.014) in the control group and -0.53 (p = 0.00001) in the depressed group. These values show the degree of correlation between the two measures of anhedonia. The French version of the PAS is reliable and allow us to study the physical anhedonia in psychopathology.