The Examination of Reliability and Validity of the Turkish Intrusive Visual Imagery and Verbal Thought Questionnaires

Abstract

Intrusive thoughts are a common symptom found in various mental disorders. Although the definition of intrusive thoughts comprises visual imagery and verbal thoughts, most of the intrusive thoughts measures do not assess these constructs separately. The Intrusive Visual Imagery and Verbal Thought Questionnaires is a two-factor, 20-item measure of intrusive visual imagery and verbal thoughts. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the psychometric properties of IVIVTQ in Turkish speaking samples. The data was collected from 651 participants. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted in two randomly split-half samples (63.50% and 67.08% females; Mage1 = 28.56 ± 14.11, Mage2 = 27.63 ± 13.89). Convergent validity, divergent validity and internal consistency coefficients were assessed in a sub-sample of 556 participants (62.77% females; Mage = 29.25 ± 14.81), while test-retest correlations were examined in the third separate sample of 88 participants (80.68% females; Mage = 22.19 ± 4.98). The results of factor analyses indicated a two-factor structure with visual (IVIVTQ-Visual) and verbal (IVIVTQ-Verbal) factors. The correlation of IVIVTQ-Visual and IVIVTQ-Verbal with the measures of depression, anxiety, stress, and gender role attitudes showed that the Turkish form had good convergent and satisfactory divergent validity. Finally, IVIVTQ, IVIVTQ-Visual, and IVIVTQ-Verbal had satisfactory internal consistency coefficients (α = .96, .93, and .94, respectively) and three-week test-retest correlations (ICC = .83, .71, and .83, respectively). Overall, the findings suggested the Turkish version of the IVIVTQ is a valid and reliable measure to assess intrusive visual imagery and verbal thoughts in the Turkish population.