Cross-cultural personality assessment in psychiatric populations: The NEO-PI-R in the People's Republic of China

The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) is a measure of the 5-factor model developed on volunteer samples in the United States. To examine its validity in a non-Western, psychiatric sample, an existing Chinese translation was modified for use in the People's Republic of China (PRC). The instrument was administered to 2,000 psychiatric in- and outpatients at 13 sites throughout the PRC. Internal consistency was low for some facet scales, bur retest reliability was adequate and the hypothesized factor structure was clearly recovered. Correlations with age, California Psychological Inventory scales, and spouse ratings supported the validity of NEO-PI-R scales, and diagnostic subgroups showed meaningful personality profiles. The 5-factor model appears to be useful for the assessment of personality among Chinese psychiatric patients.