Reliability and Validity of the Italian Version of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire

Abstract

Objective: the present study reports on the psychometric properties of the adaptation into Italian of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ; Hayes et al., 2004). The AAQ is aimed at measuring several processes involved in the psychological basic ability namely “psychological flexibility” -or its opposite “experiential avoidance”- in population-based studies. The pool of items assesses the degree to which an individual fuses with thoughts, avoids feelings, and is unable to act in the presence of difficult private events. Design and methods: participants included undergraduate students and non-student adults (males and females, 18-65 yrs.). In addition to the AAQ, subjects were also requested to fill up questionnaires measuring constructs that share a high conceptual affinity with the scale. In order to estimate the test-retest reliability of the instrument, a half of the sample completed the questionnaire twice over an interval of two to three weeks. Statistical analyses for testing the factorial validity, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent validity of the questionnaire were carried out. Results: findings in this study indicate that the AAQ is a reliable and valid assessment tool for measuring Psychological Flexibility/Experiential Avoidance in population-based studies with Italian samples. Conclusion: like the English original version, the Italian AAQ is an important instrument for measuring Experiential Avoidance, which has been proposed to be a stronger contributor to psychopathology, and is supposed to be related to several significant forms of psychological dysfunctions