中華心理衛生協會

Purpose: The Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) is frequently employed in studies on worry. It has been translated into various languages, and versions in all of these languages are characterized by satisfactory psychometric properties. However, the factor structure of PSWQ has yet to be clarified. The objective of this article is to examine the psychometric properties of the Taiwan-version PSWQ and determine its factor structure. Methods: A total of 508 participants (62 patients with generalized anxiety disorder, 92 patients with other anxiety or depressive disorders, and 354 university students) took the Taiwan-version PSWQ from 2012~2014. We used exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to examine the psychometric properties and factor structure of the Taiwan-version PSWQ. Results: The result shows that the measure exhibits favorable internal consistency (Cronbach’s α =.81~.89) and convergent and discriminative validity. In addition, the analyses indicated the factor structure of the Taiwan-version PSWQ includes only one general worry factor, and two method factors that were generated because the items were stated differently. Conclusions: This study revealed that the Taiwan-version PSWQ has satisfactory psychometric properties and is a suitable research and clinical instrument for measuring worry. Future studies are recommended to administer the Taiwan-version PSWQ to samples from communities or relatively larger samples of patients with anxiety or depressive disorders to further verify the factor structure of the Taiwan-version PSWQ.