University of Louisville, KY, USA.
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Assessment. 2024 Apr;31(3):602-616. doi: 10.1177/10731911231174469. Epub 2023 May 25.
Fear approach is a theorized mechanism of exposure treatment for anxiety-based disorders. However, there are no empirically established self-report instruments measuring the tendency to approach feared stimuli. Because clinical fears are heterogeneous, it is important to create a measure that is adaptable to person- or disorder-specific fears. The current study ( = 455) tests the development, factor structure, and psychometric properties of a self-report instrument of fear approach broadly and the adaptability of this measure to specific eating disorder fears (i.e., food, weight gain). Factor analyses identified a unidimensional, nine-item factor structure as the best fitting model. This measure had good convergent, divergent, and incremental validity and good internal consistency. The eating disorder adaptations retained good fit and strong psychometric properties. These results suggest that this measure is a valid, reliable, and adaptable measure of fear approach, which can be used in research and exposure therapy treatment for anxiety-based disorders.
恐惧趋近是一种被理论化的暴露治疗焦虑障碍的机制。然而，目前还没有经过实证验证的自我报告工具来衡量趋近恐惧刺激的倾向。由于临床恐惧是异质的，因此创建一个能够适应特定个体或特定障碍恐惧的测量工具是很重要的。本研究（n=455）检验了恐惧趋近的自我报告工具的开发、因子结构和心理测量特性的广泛性，以及该测量工具对特定饮食障碍恐惧（即食物、体重增加）的适应性。因子分析确定了一个单一维度、九个项目的因子结构是最适合的模型。该测量工具具有良好的聚合、发散和增量效度以及良好的内部一致性。饮食障碍的适应性保留了良好的拟合度和强大的心理测量特性。这些结果表明，该测量工具是一种有效的、可靠的和适应性强的恐惧趋近测量工具，可用于基于焦虑障碍的研究和暴露治疗。
