A Systematic Review of Psychometric Transactional Analysis Instruments

Abstract

Abstract Since the founding of transactional analysis (TA) by Eric Berne in the 1950s, many psychometric instruments have been developed to operationalize TA concepts. Several studies have provided general reviews of these, but the studies are not systematic and do not assess the psychometric quality of the instruments. We conducted a systematic literature review of all psychometric instruments operationalizing TA concepts by searching in Pubmed, Medline, PsycInfo, APA articles, Web-of-Knowledge, and scholar.google.com. The study quality was evaluated with the consensus-based standards for the selection of health measurement instruments (COSMIN). Of the 12,287 initial search hits, we selected 56 instruments in 263 studies. Among those, the Schema Mode Inventory, the Tokyo Egogram, the Adjective Check List, the ANINT-A36, and the Life Position Scale were found to have fair to good overall COSMIN quality. Except for the Life Position Scale, they operationalize ego states (Parent, Adult, Child) and the functional analysis concepts of Critical Parent, Nurturing Parent, and Adapted/Free Child. The Life Position Scale operationalized the positive and negative positions toward self and others. Other questionnaires had poor to fair COSMIN quality, usually because of a lack of studies. Meta-analyses indicated that psychopathology and physical symptoms are associated with strong Critical Parent, strong Adapted Child, weak Integrated Adult, negative coping styles, and negative positions toward oneself and others. Many instruments need further validation and translation into more languages. The Schema Mode Inventory, the Tokyo Egogram, the Adjective Check List, and the Life Position Scale are the best validated questionnaires. These could be used by researchers to test treatment effectiveness and by psychotherapists to examine the problems and etiology of clients.