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The Covert and Overt Reassurance Seeking Inventory (CORSI): Development, validation and psychometric analyses.

Behav Cogn Psychother. 2020 Oct 13; :1-18

Authors: Radomsky AS, Neal RL, Parrish CL, Lavoie SL, Schell SE

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Reassurance seeking (RS) is motivated by perceived general and social/relational threats across disorders, yet is often under-recognized because it occurs in covert (i.e. subtle) and overt forms. Covert safety-seeking behaviour may maintain disorders by preventing corrective learning and is therefore important to identify effectively.

AIMS: This study presents the validation and psychometric analyses of a novel measure of covert and overt, general and social/relational threat-related interpersonal RS.

METHOD: An initial 30-item measure was administered to an undergraduate sample (N = 1626), as well as to samples of individuals diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD; n = 50), anxiety disorders (n = 60) and depression (n = 30). The data were subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and validation analyses.

RESULTS: An exploratory factor analysis using principal axis factoring with oblique rotation yielded five interpretable factors, after removing four complex items. The resulting 26-item measure, the Covert and Overt Reassurance Seeking Inventory (CORSI), evidenced good convergent and divergent validity and accounted for 54.99% of the total variance after extraction. Factor correlations ranged from r = .268 to .736, suggesting that they may be tapping into unique facets of RS behaviour. In comparison with undergraduate participants, all clinical groups had significantly higher total scores [t (51.80-840) = 3.92-5.84, p < .001]. The CFA confirmed the five-factor model with good fit following the addition of four covariance terms (goodness of fit index = .897, comparative fit index = .918, Tucker-Lewis index = .907, root mean square error approximation = .061).

CONCLUSION: The CORSI is a brief, yet comprehensive and psychometrically strong measure of problematic RS. With further validation, the CORSI has potential for use within clinical and research contexts.

PMID: 33046164 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]