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A Validation and Generality Study of the Committed Action Questionnaire in a Swedish Sample with Chronic Pain

International Journal of Behavioral Medicine volume 23, pages 260–270 (2016)Cite this article

Abstract

Purpose

Psychological flexibility is the theoretical model that underpins Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT). There is a growing body of evidence indicating that ACT is an effective treatment for chronic pain but one component of the model, committed action, has not been sufficiently researched. The purpose of this study is to validate Swedish-language versions of the full length Committed Action Questionnaire (CAQ; CAQ-18) and the shortened CAQ (CAQ-8), to examine the generality of previous results related to committed action and to further demonstrate the relevance of this construct to the functioning of patients with chronic pain.

Method

The study includes preliminary analyses of the reliability and validity of the CAQ. Participants were 462 consecutive referrals to the Pain Rehabilitation Unit at Skåne University Hospital.

Results

The Swedish-language versions of the CAQ (CAQ-18 and CAQ-8) demonstrated high levels of internal consistency and satisfactory relationships with various indices of patient functioning and theoretically related concepts. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that the Swedish versions of the CAQ yielded similar two-factor models as found in the original validation studies. Hierarchical regression analyses identified the measures as significant contributors to explained variance in patient functioning.

Conclusion

The development, translation and further validation of the CAQ is an important step forward in evaluating the utility of the psychological flexibility model to the treatment of chronic pain. The CAQ can both assist researchers interested in mediators of chronic pain treatment and further enable research on change processes within the psychological flexibility model.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Katarina Lundberg and the psychologists at the Department of Pain Rehabilitation, Skåne University Hospital, for their contributions during the measure translation.

Funding

No funding sources were provided.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Department of Pain Rehabilitation, Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden

    Sophia Åkerblom & Marcelo Rivano Fischer

  2. Department of Psychology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Sophia Åkerblom & Sean Perrin

  3. Department of Health Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Marcelo Rivano Fischer

  4. Psychology Department, Health Psychology Section, King’s College London, London, UK

    Lance M. McCracken

Authors
  1. Sophia Åkerblom
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  2. Sean Perrin
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  3. Marcelo Rivano Fischer
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  4. Lance M. McCracken
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sophia Åkerblom.

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Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Åkerblom, S., Perrin, S., Fischer, M.R. et al. A Validation and Generality Study of the Committed Action Questionnaire in a Swedish Sample with Chronic Pain. Int.J. Behav. Med. 23, 260–270 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-016-9539-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-016-9539-x

Keywords

  • Committed action questionnaire
  • Chronic pain
  • Psychological flexibility
  • Psychometric properties
  • Assessment