Psychological inflexibility, externalizing and internalizing problems and satisfaction with life in children and adolescents

Abstract

Background: The Avoidance and Fusion Questionnaire for Youth (AFQ-Y8, Greco, Lambert, & Baer, 2008) measures the psychological inflexibility in childhood. Although the questionnaire is a well-known tool in clinical practice, its psychometric properties have not been widely investigated, especially not among school-aged, healthy children. The aim of the present study was to assess the psychometric properties of AFQ-Y8. Methods: We tested the measurement model of AFQ-Y8 on a representative sample (N=1572) of healthy, school-aged children and adolescents (mean age=15.39 ys, SD= 2.26 ys). We applied confirmatory factor analysis and used BFQ-C (Barbaranelli, Caprara, Rabasca, Pastorelli, 2003), for assessing the Big Five factors in youth, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1998), measuring externalizing and internalizing problems, along with the Cantril’s ladder (Cantril, 1965) for assessing the children’s satisfaction with life. Findings: Our results confirmed the single-factor structure of AFQ-Y8. The reliability of the questionnaire was good. Experiential avoidance showed positive relation to emotional instability, and was negatively related to extraversion and conscientiousness. Experiential avoidance had positive relationship with internalizing and externalizing problems, as well. Satisfaction with life had negative relationship with experiential avoidance. Discussion: AFQ-Y8 proved to be a valid and reliable measure in healthy young adolescents. Based on previous findings avoidance is related to internalizing psychopathologies. We found that experiential avoidance was also linked to externalizing problems, highlighting that emotion dysregulation is an important feature of externalizing symptoms. However, more research should be conducted to analyze the factors beyond experiential avoidance and psychopathological and health related problems.