The Driving Cognitions Questionnaire: Development and preliminary psychometric properties

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Abstract

Recent research has suggested that fear of driving is common in the general population. People may have various concerns when driving, and instruments for the assessment of these concerns are lacking. The present paper describes the development and preliminary evaluation of the Driving Cognitions Questionnaire (DCQ). The DCQ is a 20-item scale that measures three areas of driving-related concerns—panic-related, accident-related, and social concerns. In three separate samples from different countries (n = 69, 100, and 78), the scale showed good internal consistency and substantial correlations with measures of the severity of driving fear. It discriminated well between people with and without driving phobia. It also showed convergent validity with other measures. The questionnaire shows promise for use in research and clinical practice.

Section snippets

Study 1: scale development and initial psychometric properties

The goals of Study 1 were:

  • 1.

    To develop a brief Driving Cognitions Questionnaire (DCQ) that represents typical concerns of patients with driving phobia.

  • 2.

    To conduct a preliminary test of the reliability and validity of the scale. Convergent and discriminant validity were assessed by testing (a) whether the DCQ discriminated between individuals with and without driving phobia, (b) whether the DCQ correlated with the severity of driving phobia, and (c) whether the DCQ correlated with measures of

Study 2: replication of psychometric properties and further validation

The goals of Study 2 were:

  • 1.

    To further investigate the internal consistency as well as convergent and discriminant validity of the DCQ. As with Study 1, we were interested in assessing how well the DCQ discriminated people with driving fear from nonanxious controls. We were also interested in the correlations of the DCQ with measures of the severity of driving fear and other measures of phobic avoidance, anxiety and depression.

  • 2.

    To examine the factor structure of the DCQ with an independent sample

Study 3: replication of psychometric properties and further validation with traffic accident survivors

The aim of the third study was to replicate the psychometric properties of the DCQ in a sample of road traffic accident survivors. Goals were to determine whether the DCQ (a) discriminated between accident survivors with and without travel phobia, (b) correlated with measures of travel-related fear and avoidance, and (c) correlated with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and depression. We also investigated (d) whether the DCQ correlated with measures of cognitions and safety behaviors

Discussion

This paper described the development and initial psychometric evaluation of the Driving Cognitions Questionnaire (DCQ). The scale measures a range of cognitions that may play a role in driving phobia. The 20-item measure showed excellent internal consistencies in three samples in different countries. In all studies, the DCQ discriminated well between participants with and without driving/travel phobia. In Studies 1 and 3, the DCQ classified 78 and 76% of the participants correctly into the

Acknowledgements

The studies were supported by the Wellcome Trust, the German Academic Exchange Service, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. We thank those who volunteered to participate in the studies reported in this article.

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    Present address: Department of Psychology, University of Bielefeld, Germany.

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