The Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire-7: Measurement invariance of the Italian version across general and clinical samples

Introduction: According to the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), cognitive fusion (CF) refers to the tendency to get caught up in the content of thoughts so that it dominates over other sources of behavioral regulation such as contextual contingences. Rigid forms of CF take a central role in the development and maintenance of psychopathology. The Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire – 7 items (CFQ-7; Gillanders et al., 2014) is the most widely used tool to assess CF. Several studies have attested its good psychometric properties in different cultures. The aim of this study was to test the psychometric properties of the Italian version of CFQ-7 by confirming its characteristics in terms of dimensionality, reliability, and invariance across general and clinical samples. Method: The general sample was composed of 258 university students (70% females, mean age = 24.30, SD = 10.01), and the clinical sample consisted in 107 university students (61% females, mean age = 23.82, SD = 3.04) who were affected by clinical levels of psychological distress according to the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Both the samples attended the School of Psychology of the University of Pisa. Results: the unidimensional structure was confirmed (CFI=.98, TLI=.97, RMSEA=.06) in the general sample, and the internal consistency reliability estimate was .88 (95% CI [.85 - .90]). Invariance of the factor structure across the general and clinical group was obtained, by reaching the level of measurement residuals equivalence. Conclusions: Findings showed that the CFQ-7 can be adequately used to measure CF in research and clinical settings in the Italian populatio