Preliminary validation of a Turkish version of the Comprehensive Assessment of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Processes in students of the emergency aid and disaster management

Background: This study aimed to perform an across-cultural adaptation of the English version of The Comprehensive Assessment of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Processes (CompACT) into Turkish and to evaluate its psychometric properties in emergency aid and disaster management students. Methods: The study was conducted in two phases. Phase 1 involved the translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the CompACT. In phase 2, a study was conducted to assess the validity and reliability of the CompACT. It was conducted among 302 emergency aid and disaster management students. Results: The exploratory factor analysis showed that the CompACT consisted of 3 factors explaining 75.848% of the total variance, comprising 20 items. Communality values varied between 0.537-0.959, and values of the items under each factor varied between 0.731-0.974. CFA analysis was performed with three possible model tests. It was determined that the three-factor model showed the best goodness of fit values. The general fit indices of the model were found to be appropriate, as indicated by the following values: CMIN/df: 2.590; GFI: 0.882; AGFI: 0.848; NFI: 0.941; CFI: 0.963; IFI: 0.9963; TLI: 0.956; RMSEA: 0.073. The heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations was used for convergent and divergent validity in the context of the factors of the scale, and the scale met the convergent and divergent validity conditions within its structure. Besides this, divergent validity was performed to test the comparative validity of the scale with different scales. It was found that a negative correlation between CompACT and Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ II) (r=‒0.365) and Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS-21) (r=‒0.403). CompACT had high internal consistency (all alpha and omega values ​​were found to be above 0.70) and test-retest reliability (r= 0.748). Conclusions: The results suggest that the 20-item CompACT is reliable and valid for measuring psychological flexibility in Turkish emergency aid and disaster management students.