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Rapid social and economic changes, such as economic crisis, changes in the labour market, migration etc., took place worldwide during the last decades. While at the level of society such changes can cause anomie, i.e. the condition or state in which there is a breakdown of social norms and guidance for the citizens of a society and/ or the discrepancy between common social goals and the legitimate means to attain those goals, at the individual level such changes can cause anomia.

Recently a new psychological integrative model of anomia was developed (Levina, Martinsone, & Kamerade, 2015), according to which anomia is multidimensional and includes three main dimensions normlessness, meaninglessness, and social isolation.

The purpose of this research was to introduce a new instrument – the Anomia Questionnaire (AQ), which was developed to measure different dimensions of anomia and is based on the Levina, Martinsone, and Kamerade (2015) multidimensional model of anomia, as well as to determine its psychometric properties.

The sample consisted of 203 Latvian inhabitants aged from 18 to 25 years (45.5 % male, 54.5 % female).

The factorial validity of the AQ was established using principal components analysis with varimax rotation; this yielded six factors, which can be interpreted as An Individual’s Deviation from Prescribed Rules or Customs, Social Distrust, Estrangement to Others, Cultural Isolation, The Lack of Goal Clarity and Generalized Sense of Meaninglessness.

All the AQ scales had high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha varied from .72 to .90). The reaction and discrimination indices satisfied the accepted psychometric criteria.

The further stage of the AQ development would be the confirmatory factor analysis in broader international sample, the concurrent and convergent validity establishing, and test-retest reliability examination.