Measuring psychological flexibility and cognitive defusion in individuals with acquired brain injury

Figures & data

Table 1. Demographic characteristics

Demographic variables Mean (SD) or n (%)
Sex, n women (%)	34 (46.6)
Age, mean (SD)	56.5 (11.47)
Marital Status, n (%)
Unmarried	5 (6.8)
Married	48 (65.8)
Living together with partner	12 (16.4)
Divorced	5 (6.8)
Widowed	3 (4.1)
Education, n (%)
Low (primary education and lower vocational education)	12 (16.4)
Medium (general secondary education and secondary vocational education)	24 (32.9)
High (pre-university education, higher professional education, and university education)	37 (50.7)
Employment, n (%)
Employed	26 (35.6)
Incapacitated for work	24 (32.9)
Unemployed	4 (5.5)
Retired	11 (15.1)
Other	8 (10.9)
ABI-related variables Mean (SD) or n(%)
Time (years) since ABI, mean (SD)	3.68 (5.39)
Type of ABI, n (%)
Ischemic stroke	34 (46.6)
Hemorrhagic stroke	8 (10.9)
Traumatic brain injury	31 (42.5)

ABI, acquired brain injury

Table 2. Score distribution and reliability

	M	SD	Median	Range	% lowest score	% highest score	Skewness	α
AAQ-ABI	11.18	8.40	8	0–31	2.7%	0%	0.28	0.87
CFQ-7	22.73	12.24	24	7–45	13.7%	0%	0.18	0.97

AAQ-ABI, Acceptance and Action Questionnaire after Acquired Brain Injury; CFQ-7, Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire

Table 3. The corrected item-total correlations of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire after Brain Injury

Item No.		Corrected Item-Total Correlation
1	I hate how my brain injury makes me feel about myself	0.69
2	I need to get rid of my anxiety about my brain injury	0.76
3	I stop doing things when I feel scared about my brain injury	0.64
4	My brain injury defines me as a person	0.54
5	I am moving forward with my life	0.44
6	I would give up important things in my life if I could make the brain injury go away	0.40
7	My worries and fears about my brain injury are true	0.78
8	Other people make it hard for me to accept myself	0.60
9	Most people are doing better than me	0.74

Table 4. The corrected item-total correlations of the Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire

Item No.		Corrected Item-Total Correlation
1	My thoughts cause me distress or emotional pain	0.91
2	I get so caught up in my thoughts that I am unable to do the things that I most want to do	0.84
3	I over-analyze situations to the point where it’s unhelpful to me	0.88
4	I struggle with my thoughts	0.93
5	I get upset with myself for having certain thoughts	0.87
6	I tend to get very entangled in my thoughts	0.87
7	It’s such a struggle to let go of upsetting thoughts even when I know that letting go would be helpful	0.90

Table 5. Spearman’s rank correlation matrix

	AAQ-ABI	CFQ-7	AAQ-II	HADS^1	DASS-21^1	PCS^1	MCS^1	VLQ^1
AAQ-ABI	-	0.72**	0.81**	0.47*	0.65**	−0.22	−0.57*	−0.70**
CFQ-7	0.72**	-	0.84**	0.65**	0.57**	−0.06	−0.67**	−0.50**

AAQ-ABI, Acceptance and Action Questionnaire after Acquired Brain Injury; CFQ-7, Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire; AAQ-II, Acceptance and Action Questionnaire II; HADS, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; DASS-21, Depression, anxiety and stress scale-21; PSC, Physical Component Summary; MCS, Mental Component Summary; and VLQ, Valued Living Questionnaire.

* = p < .05

** = p < 0.01

¹Based on a smaller sample (N = 33)