Reliability and Validity of the Chinese Version of the Cognitive Distortions Questionnaire (CD-Quest) in College Students

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the Cognitive Distortions Questionnaire (CD-Quest) among Chinese college students. MATERIAL/METHODS: A total of 460 college students from Jining were recruited in the study. Sample 1, including 239 college students, was tested for item analysis and exploratory factor analysis. Sample 2, including 221 college students, was tested for confirmatory factor analysis and criterion validity. The criterion validity was tested using the Negative Automatic Thoughts questionnaire (ATQ) and Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (DAS). Test-retest reliability was evaluated in 40 college students from sample 1 with 4 weeks interval. RESULTS: The corrected item-total correction (ITC) ranged from 0.675 (emotional reasoning) to 0.829 (unfair comparison). Exploratory factor analysis revealed the variance of the CD-Quest items was unidimensional, and it explained 55.261% of the data variance. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated all regression coefficients were higher than 0.4. The criterion validity was excellent, as shown by the relationships among CD-Quest, DAS, and ATQ (r=0.447, 0.566, respectively). Cronbach’s α coefficient was 0.941 and the test-retest reliability was 0.928. CONCLUSIONS: The Chinese version of CD-Quest had good reliability and validity, suggesting it is a reliable tool to evaluate cognitive distortion of Chinese college students.