Adaptation and validation study of the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire in psychiatric outpatients in a community mental health setting

Purpose The present study aims to establish the factor structure and reliability of the Spanish version of the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ), adapted to psychiatric medication, and to analyze the potential differences between psychiatric outpatients, medical students, and psychology students. Method The BMQ was tested on a sample of 405 psychiatric outpatients, 216 medical students, and 222 psychology students. Students completed only the BMQ‐General scale, adapted for psychiatric medication, and patients completed also the BMQ‐Specific scale. Results For the BMQ‐General scale adapted items, the analysis shows a two‐factor structure similar to that described for the Spanish validation of the original instrument, but when samples are analyzed separately, relevant differences are observed in the composition of the factor structures. Furthermore, the resulting scales show a medium–low internal consistency. For BMQ‐Specific scale items, the results replicate previous data. Medical students tend to consider psychiatric medication as less harmful and less likely to be overprescribed than psychology students, with patients' scores in the middle of both groups. Conclusion The BMQ‐Specific scale has satisfactory psychometric properties for use in psychiatric outpatients in a community mental health setting. The adapted Spanish BMQ‐General scale for psychotropics identified three different structures of the factors for each of the three samples studied. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.