Measuring interrelating within couples: The Couple's Relating to Each Other Questionnaires (CREOQ)

The Couple's Relating to Each Other Questionnaires (CREOQ) are a set of four questionnaires for measuring negative forms of interrelating within couples. They enable each partner to rate his/her relating to the other and the other's relating to him/her. They are based upon the theoretical structure called the interpersonal octagon, and each questionnaire has eight scales. They are usually accompanied by a brief, single-scale questionnaire called the US (us as a couple), by which each partner rates the quality of the relationship. The set of questionnaires was administered to 130 English couples from the community, 157 English couples seeking couple therapy and 89 Dutch community couples. The Dutch couples were also invited to rate themselves and their partners according to the items of the revised interpersonal checklist (ICL-R). The mean scores for the US and for most of the scales of the four CREOQ were significantly higher in the couple therapy sample. The internal reliabilities of the Dutch sample were generally lower than those of the English sample. Correlations were examined between the 10 ICL-R scales and the 8 CREOQ ones. Some agreement emerged, and for the ICL-R, there appeared to be one close, one distant, four upper and two lower scales