The Cognitive Distortions Questionnaire (CD-Quest): Psychometric Properties and Exploratory Factor Analysis

Despite the theoretical prominence of cognitive distortions in the development, maintenance, and treatment of a variety of mental health problems, relatively little research has focused on the development and psychometric validation of a tool to specifically assess cognitive distortions. Of the existing scales, only one is relatively brief and comprehensive, but it is focused specifically on social and academic contexts. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to provide the first examination of the psychometric properties of the Cognitive Distortions Questionnaire (CD-Quest; de Oliveira, 2014a, 2015) in an English-speaking sample, as it is a relatively new measure that satisfies these criteria. In a large sample (N = 906) of undergraduate students from a public university, the CD-Quest total score demonstrated excellent internal consistency, a unitary factor structure, and strong evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. Future studies are needed to further validate the CD-Quest, although the current study provides strong preliminary evidence supporting its psychometric properties.