Development of the Cognitive Distortion Scale for Adults (EDC-A): Study of psychometric properties in the general population and association with anxiety and depression

Introduction. - Cognitive distortions contribute to the maintenance of inappropriate cognitive schemas and play a role in the emergence of pathologies such as anxiety and depression. We developed the Cognitive Distortion Scale for Adults in order to identify distortions in individuals' reasoning. The main objectives of this study were: (1) to study the psychometric properties of the Cognitive Distortion Scale for Adults, (2) to identify cognitive distortions associated with anxiety and depression in the general population. Method. - The study involved 916 participants (151 men and 765 women) aged 18 to 85-years. The participants completed the Cogni-tive Distortion Scale for Adults. The tool presents 42 mini scenarios with a daily life situation and a proposition concerning a cognitive distortion. Participants must give their degree of agreement (0 to 10) with this one. Seven cognitive distortions are operationalized (dichotomous reasoning, disqualification of one of the poles, arbi-trary focusing, omission of the neutral, requalification in the other pole, maximization and minimization). They also completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Both scales were available online on the Internet. The total duration of the test was approxi-mately 10 minutes. A group of 35 participants completed the two scale 15 days apart. Results. - The sub-dimensions of EDC-A obtain Cronbach alphas higher than .65 and EDC-A has a coherent factor structure. The scale has good temporal stability. Anxiety is predicted by dicho-tomous reasoning, disqualification of one of the poles, arbitrary focusing and maximization. Depression is predicted by dichoto-mous reasoning, arbitrary focusing, omission of the neutral and requalification in the other pole. Anxiety and depression are asso-ciated with negative cognitive distortions in reasoning. However, depression is also associated with positive cognitive distortions. Subjects with depression produce more varied cognitive distortions than subjects with anxiety. Discussion. - The Cognitive Distortion Scale for Adults shows pro-mising psychometric properties. Further studies will need to be conducted to confirm these results. Anxiety would be related to biased information treatment of negative information, whereas depression would be related to more comprehensive biased infor-mation treatment, both negative and positive information. Anxiety would be related to suboptimal functioning of reasoning abilities; depression would be more characterized by a structural deficit of reasoning abilities. (C) 2021 Societe Francaise de Psychologie. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.