The Obsessive Beliefs Questionnaire: Adaptation of Its Short Forms to the Turkish and Examination of Their Psychometric Properties

Abstract

The Obsessive Beliefs Questionnaire (OBQ) is a frequently used instrument in relevant literature for assessment of cognitive biases that play critical roles in appraisal of intrusive experiences in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The questionnaire was initially designed as a 44-item questionnaire, then was shortened to 20 items and lastly was brought down to 9-items. Since so far, only the 44-item version has been available in Turkey, this study aimed to examine psychometric properties of the two shortened OBQ forms in a community sample. The study included the data sets of two adult groups on the OBQ and the psychometric tools completed on the OCD symptoms, self-ambivalence and thought action fusion. Results of the explanatory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that the Turkish language versions of the OBQ-20 and OBQ-9 had acceptable internal consistency coefficients, similar factor structures to the original studies on the questionnaire, and that, on the bases of the extra modeling tests, the total and the subdimensional scores of both questionnaires were usable for OCD assessments. Moreover as expected, there were significant correlations among these biases, OCD symptoms, self-ambivalence and thought-action fusion.