An Italian application of the Louvain Loneliness Scale for Children and adolescents (LLCA)

The LLCA (Louvain Loneliness Scale for Children and Adolescents) by Marcoen, Goossens and Caes (1987) is a questionnaire measuring four subscales: loneliness in the relationship with parents, loneliness in the relationship with peers, aversion towards aloneness, and affinity for aloneness. The aim of the present study is to provide factor analysis and test-retest reliability for the LLCA on italian adolescents. The LLCA was administered to two groups of adolescents (522 participants in the Study 1 and 209 in the Study 2), aged from 14 to 19, and living in Emilia Romagna, Italy. In Study 1 validity was proved using explorative and confirmatory factor analysis (Lisrel 8.54). For each subscale an exploration of age and gender differences was performed. In Study 2 the LLCA was administered to the same participants twice with the aim to prove test-retest reliability. Results at T1 e T2 were compared. Results displayed a four- factor structure similar to the findings in the reference studies (Marcoen & Goossens, 1993; Marcoen et al, 1987) and test-retest relaibility was confirmed.