Initial psychometric evaluation of the Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire in Peruvian undergraduates

Abstract

Background: The Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire (PTQ) is a global measure of repetitive negative thinking, a core transdiagnostic dimension of mental health. Objectives: This study sought to examine the factor structure, reliability, and evidence of associative validity of the PTQ in Peruvian undergraduates. Method: Data from 240 undergraduates (Mage = 20.33, 59% female) were evaluated with confirmatory factor analysis. After finding the best factor structure, reliability was estimated with coefficient omega. The correlation between the PTQ’s latent variable and cognitive fusion was examined as evidence of associative validity. Results: the PTQ proved to be essentially unidimensional since acceptable fit was obtained by the one-factor model with three correlations between errors (CFI = .945; RMSEA = .079). Reliability was high (ω = .927). The correlation between the PTQ and cognitive fusion was very large (ϕ = .876). Conclusion: The PTQ is an essentially unidimensional measure, thus only a global score should be computed. Associative validity should be further examined in future studies.