A psychometric analysis of the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale among four racial groups

Recent psychometric analyses examining the cross-cultural validity of key anxiety measures have suggested that some, such as the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI), may hold different psychometric characteristics among different racial or national groups. The Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS) is a self-report measure that, like the ASI, appears to assess a predispositional risk for developing some anxiety and mood disorders. Despite its validation in both a French and English version, the majority of the research conducted on the IUS has used predominantly Caucasian samples. Given this, the purpose of this research was to examine and compare the psychometric properties of the IUS among non-clinical participants of four racial groups: African American, Caucasian, Hispanic/Latino, and Southeast Asian. The data suggested generally strong, and highly similar, estimates of reliability and validity across the four racial groups. The factor structure of the IUS, however, was poorly interpretable among any of the groups. Implications for use of the IUS with different racial groups are discussed.