Abstract
Background
Beck's theory of emotional disorder suggests that negative automatic thoughts (NATs) and the underlying schemata affect one's way of interpreting situations and result in maladaptive coping strategies. Depending on their content and meaning, NATs are associated with specific emotions, and since they are usually quite brief, patients are often more aware of the emotion they feel. This relationship between cognition and emotion, therefore, is thought to form the background of the cognitive content specificity hypothesis. Researchers focusing on this hypothesis have suggested that instruments like the cognition checklist (CCL) might be an alternative to make a diagnostic distinction between depression and anxiety.Objectives
The aim of the present study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the CCL in a psychiatric outpatient sample.Patients and methods
A total of 425 psychiatric outpatients 18 years of age and older were recruited. After a structured diagnostic interview, the participants completed the hospital anxiety depression scale (HADS), the automatic thoughts questionnaire (ATQ), and the CCL. An exploratory factor analysis was performed, followed by an oblique rotation. The internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and concurrent and discriminant validity analyses were undertaken.Results
The internal consistency of the CCL was excellent (Cronbach's α = 0.95). The test-retest correlation coefficients were satisfactory (r = 0.80, P Conclusions
The current study has provided evidence that the Turkish version of the CCL is a reliable and valid instrument to assess NATs in a clinical outpatient sample.