Anxiety Sensitivitiy Index: Validity and reliability in Turkish sample

Anxiety sensitivity is an individual difference variable defined as the 'fear of fear" or "fear of anxiety": arising from the belief that the experience of anxiety symptoms leads to illness or additional anxiety. The Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI) is the most frequently used scale to measure anxiety sensitivity. The ASI is a 16-item self-report measurement developed by Reiss, Peterson, Gursky, and McNally (1986), and each item is assessed on a 5-point scale. The purpose of this study was to determine the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the ASI. The scale was first translated into Turkish, and then it was administered to 314 college students. Item-total analysis revealed that two items (Item I and Item 5) had the item-total correlation coefficients less than .20 and also factor analysis yielded that the factor loadings of the same items were less than .30. The wording of these two items was changed and the scale was administered to a sample of 174 student. Cronbach alpha coefficient of the scale was .85. The correlations between the ASI and the Trait Inventory Scale and the Beck Anxiety Scale were both .47 (p < .001). Even though the exploratory factor analysis yielded a I-factor solution, the results suggested that a single factor solution represented a better fit to the data, using a number of criteria to estimate the number of factors in the exploratory factor analysis. The psychometric characteristics of the Turkish version of the ASI were discussed in the light of the literature regarding anxiety sensitivity.