Psychometric Properties of the Body Image Acceptance and Action Questionnaire in Patients with Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders in Kashan City

Background: The Body Image Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (BI-AAQ) assesses cognitive flexibility and acceptance of body image. Objectives: This study was done to assess the validity and reliability of the Persian version of BI-AAQ, as an instrument to measure body image flexibility, in patients with somatic symptom and related disorders. Methods: This descriptive psychometric study was done in 2017 on 357 patients with somatic symptom and related disorders selected through a convenient sampling method from Kashan University of Medical Sciences clinics. They responded to the BI-AAQ, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS), Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II), and Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI). The reliability of the BI-AAQ was calculated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. To assess its validity, the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used. The gathered data were analyzed via SPSS-22 and Amos-22 software. Results: This version retained a one-factor structure, similar to the original version of the questionnaire, which explained 42.55% of the variance. It had high internal consistency (0.84), split-half method (0.77), and correlates with AAQ (0.45), mindfulness (0.39) and correlates contrastingly with stress (0.11), anxiety (0.36) and depression (0.43). Conclusions: According to the results of the current research, the BI-AAQ is a reliable instrument with valid psychometric properties to measure the body image acceptance of individuals in Iranian patients with somatic symptom and related disorders.