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), consisting in a dominance of the literal meaning of thoughts over awareness, emotion and action, making behavior insensitive to contextual contingencies and progressively more inflexible, takes a central role in the development of psychopathology. To assess CF, the Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire – 7 items (CFQ-7; Gillanders et al., 2014) is the most widely used measurement tool. Several studies have attested its good psychometric properties in different cultures. The aim of the 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 pathological levels of anxiety, distress, and depression according to the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Both the samples attended the School of Psychology of the University of Pisa. Results: Inside the general sample, the unidimensional structure was confirmed (CFI=.98, TLI=.97, RMSEA=.06), 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 population