Development of the Shorter Version of Japanese Version ATQ-R (Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire-Revised): Examination of Reliability and Validity

Monday, July 11, 2011: 3:45 PM

Takashi Ohue, RN, MA
Division of Nursing Science Graduate School of Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan
Michiko Moriyama, RN, PhD
Division of Nursing Science Graduate School of Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hirosima, Japan
Takashi Nakaya, PhD
Faculty of Health and Welfare, Prefectural University of Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Japan

Learning Objective 1: The purpose of this study is to develop the shorter version of Japanese version ATQ-R, and to examine reliability and validity.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to utilize measure which measures a more effective nurse's automatic thought.

[Purpose]: The purpose of this study is to develop the shorter version of Japanese version ATQ-R, and to examine reliability and validity.

[Method]: Nurses who worked at 5 acute-care hospitals were asked to complete a questionnaire that measured burnout (Maslach Burnout Inventory: MBI-Japanese version), automatic thoughts (Automatic Thoughts Questionnare-Revised: ATQ-R Japanese version), JIBT-20 (Japanese Irrational Belief Test).Questionnaires were distributed to 700 nurses and answers were collected from 550 (collectionrate: 78.6%). After exclusion of missing values and outliers, data from 541 nurses (male: 21, female: 520) were used in the analysis.

[Result]: 38 items of original edition ATQ-R were set as three factors, and conducted factor analysis (a maximum likelihood estimation, promax rotation). As a result, 3 factor structures were extracted for “future negation”, “self negation”, and “positive thinking” as the original edition. From the result of this factor analysis, factor loadings were 0.40 or more, and 0.80 or more a Cronbach a coefficient, a Cronbach a coefficient chose the item which does not fall too much, and created the ATQ-R shortened version. As a result, “future negation” of 6 items, “self negation” of 6 items, “positive thinking” of 6 items, and ATQ-R shortened version of a total of 18 items was created. Cronbach a coefficient is a= 0.81 - 0.91, and sufficient reliability was shown. About construct validity was checked correlation with ATQ-R original edition, and about criterion validity was checked the correlation with JIBT-20 and MBI Japanese-translation version. That is, it was shown that an ATQ-R shortened version has sufficient validity.

[Conclusion] The reliability and validity of the Japanese version ATQ-R (Automatic Thoughts Questionnare-Revised) shortened version were shown, and it was affirmed that it is an effective and practical measure.

[Ethical considerations] The research protocol was approved by the Hiroshima University Ethics Committee.