The Anxiety Attitude and Belief Scale‐2: Development, Measurement Model, and Initial Validity

Abstract

Measures of enduring beliefs related to anxiety disorders are needed to assess etiological factors within cognitive therapy; while there are numerous measures of automatic thoughts, there are few measures of beliefs. The present study sought to address this gap. The items that originally appeared on ten rationally derived scales drawn from clinical phenomenology of anxiety disorders were eventually grouped into four group factors and one general factor in the course of psychometric analyses. The group factors included ones expected to distinguish groups reporting panic, OCD, and social anxiety symptoms from other anxiety symptom groups, and this prediction was supported. The majority of predictions regarding patterns or correlations were also supported. Further validation research is needed to evaluate the validity of the AABS and its subscales in predicting course and outcome of psychotherapy.

Targeting avoidant behaviors in social anxiety and agoraphobia using 360 degree immersive videos

“…Regarding secondary outcomes, non-validated French translations of the Anxiety Control Questionnaire (ACQ-R) (Brown et al, 2004) and the Anxiety Attitudes and Beliefs Scales (AABS-2) (Brown et al, 2015) were used to assess, respectively, self-efficacy towards the control of emotion, threats and stress (respective Cronbach's alpha: α Emotion =.72; α Threat = .74; α Stress = .69) and dysfunctional beliefs towards negative judgement and body vigilance (respective McDonald's omega : ꞷ Negative Judgement = .92; ꞷ Body vigilance = .86). Translations were performed by a professional translator.…”