Validation of the Social Mistrust Scale in 8- to 14-year-old Italian non-clinical and clinical sample: convergence with anxiety and depression

Background: paranoia exists in the general population both in adults and in children and is key feature of schizotypy and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Attempts to develop child-appropriate tools to assess childhood suspiciousness and its correlates with developmental psychopathology is underdeveloped but crucial. This study examines the prevalence and structure of childhood mistrust and its correlations with internalizing and externalizing problems in non-clinical and clinical samples using a newly validated Italian Social Mistrust Scale (SMS).Method: children aged 8-14 years old from a non-clinical (N = 242) and a clinical sample with anxiety and/or mood disorder (N = 44) were recruited. All children completed the SMS and a standardized battery of tests measuring schizotypal traits, anxiety, depression, and internalizing/externalizing problems.Results: the Total Mistrust score was positively skewed, with 50% of children scoring ≤3 points and 15% scoring ≥7 points. Factor Analyses revealed a three-factor model (i.e., General Mistrust, Home Mistrust, and School Mistrust) replicating the original English SMS. As expected, childhood mistrust was positively correlated with schizotypal traits, anxiety, and depression in the non-clinical sample (r = 0.49, 0.42, and 0.54, respectively) and in the clinical sample (r = 0.75, 0.51, and 0.85, respectively). Finally, the SMS showed an overall moderate internal reliability in the non-clinical sample (α = 0.74), and a good internal reliability in the clinical sample (α = 0.83).Conclusions: replicating previous studies, childhood mistrust as measured by the newly translated Italian SMS exists on a continuum of severity and is associated with higher levels of childhood psychopathology.