A Preliminary Investigation into the Factor Structure of Two Psychological Flexibility Measures in a Sample of Community-Dwelling Older Adults

ABSTRACT

Objectives

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) targets psychological flexibility and the ability to identify behavioral function in context. Properly measuring these constructs is imperative to understanding whether these processes are mechanisms of change in treatment. The current study examined the factor structure of the Comprehensive Assessment of ACT processes (CompACT) and Tacting of Function scale (TOF) in community-dwelling older adults.

Methods

Factor structure was examined with CFA. Eighty community-dwelling older adults completed questionnaires prior to an intervention.

Results

While the original 23-item, 3-factor structure of the CompACT demonstrated inadequate fit, a modified 15-item, 3-factor structure demonstrated adequate fit. The original 1-factor structure of the TOF demonstrated inadequate fit. A modified 2-factor structure of the TOF fit significantly better than the original 1-factor structure; however, this model also demonstrated inadequate fit.

Conclusions

Examining the factor structure of the CompACT and TOF in an older adult sample contributes to the field’s understanding of the constructs of psychological flexibility and tacting ability and to the clinical utility of these measures in an understudied sample.

Clinical Implications

These findings provide preliminary support for the use of a short-form version of the CompACT to measure therapeutic processes of change in community-dwelling older adults.

KEYWORDS:

• Acceptance and commitment therapy
• behavioral function
• psychological flexibility
• older adults
• scale validation
• transdiagnostic processes

Clinical implications

• Clinicians treating community-dwelling older adults should consider the reliability of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy process questionnaires in this population specifically.

• Based on these preliminary findings, clinicians treating community-dwelling older adults with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy may opt to use the short-form version of the CompACT to measure therapeutic process of change in openness, awareness, and engagement.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data can be made available upon reasonable request by contacting the corresponding author ([email protected]).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Health and National Institute of Aging: AG046539-01A1 (Principal Investigator: N.D.). This work was also supported in part by the National Institute of Health T32 pre-doctoral training grant: T32GM108540 (J.L.A., T.H., A.I.R.) and by the University of Iowa’s Ballard Seashore Fellowship (A.I.R.). Neither the NIH nor the University of Iowa had any role in the study design, collection, analysis, or interpretations of the data, writing of the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.