The Study of Inner Speech: Adaptation of Russian-Language Versions of Inner Speech Questionnaires

Background: inner speech is considered a central mechanism underlying cognitive regulation, self-awareness, and psychopathological syndrome formation; however, valid and comprehensive instruments for its psychometric assessment remain scarce in the Russian-speaking context. Objective: To conduct a preliminary adaptation and to examine the factor structure of the Russian-language versions of the Varieties of Inner Speech Questionnaire-Revised (VISQ-R), the Self-Talk Scale (STS), and the General Inner Speech Questionnaire-30-Revised (GISQ-30-R). Participants, Material and Methods: the study sample comprised 109 male participants (mean age 33.7 ± 8.9), including patients diagnosed with personality disorders (F60–61), schizophrenia spectrum disorders (F20–21), and mentally healthy controls. The questionnaires were adapted using standardized forward and backward translation procedures, followed by expert review and approval from the original authors. Cofirmatory factor analysis was employed to evaluate the factor structure of the adapted instruments. Results: the Russian-language versions of the STS and GISQ-30-R largely replicated their original factor structures, demonstrating acceptable model fit indices and statistically significant factor loadings for most items. In contrast, the VISQ-R exhibited inadequate overall model fit, although the majority of items showed significant loadings, suggesting methodological limitations primarily related to the modest sample size and its clinical heterogeneity. Conclusions: The findings indicate that the adapted STS and GISQ-30-R can be considered promising tools for the assessment of inner speech in Russian-language clinical and non-clinical research. Further refinement of the VISQ-R model and validation on larger and more homogeneous samples are warranted.

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