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Brazilian Portuguese validated version of the Cardiac Anxiety Questionnaire
Insights
The Brazilian Cardiac Anxiety Questionnaire (CAQ) is now validated for assessing cardiac anxiety in patients. This tool is reliable for clinical and research use in Brazil.
Area of Science:
- Psychiatry
- Cardiology
- Psychometrics
Background:
- Cardiac Anxiety (CA) involves fear of cardiac sensations, affecting patients with or without cardiovascular disease.
- The Cardiac Anxiety Questionnaire (CAQ) is a key tool for assessing CA.
- Previous adaptation of the CAQ to Portuguese lacked validation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present the three phases of validation studies for the Brazilian version of the CAQ.
- To establish the psychometric properties of the Brazilian CAQ.
- To confirm the CAQ's suitability for clinical and research applications in Brazil.
Main Methods:
- Phase 1: Factor structure and reliability assessed in 98 coronary artery disease patients.
- Phase 2: Convergent and divergent validity explored using the Body Sensations Questionnaire (BSQ) and Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) in 56 patients.
- Phase 3: Discriminative validity determined by comparing CAQ scores in patients with and without panic disorder/agoraphobia, diagnosed via MINI.
Main Results:
- A 2-factor solution was identified: "Fear and Hypervigilance" (9 items, alpha=0.88) and "Avoidance" (5 items, alpha=0.82), explaining 46.4% of variance.
- Significant correlations found between CAQ factor 1 and BSQ scores, and between CAQ subscales and SPIN factors.
- Patients with panic disorder showed significantly higher scores on CAQ factor 1 compared to controls.
Conclusions:
- The Brazilian version of the CAQ has been definitively validated.
- The validated CAQ is suitable for use in both clinical and research settings in Brazil.
- This provides a reliable instrument for measuring cardiac anxiety within the Brazilian population.
Background:
Cardiac Anxiety (CA) is the fear of cardiac sensations, characterized by recurrent anxiety symptoms, in patients with or without cardiovascular disease. The Cardiac Anxiety Questionnaire (CAQ) is a tool to assess CA, already adapted but not validated to Portuguese.
Objective:
This paper presents the three phases of the validation studies of the Brazilian CAQ.
Methods:
To extract the factor structure and assess the reliability of the CAQ (phase 1), 98 patients with coronary artery disease were recruited. The aim of phase 2 was to explore the convergent and divergent validity. Fifty-six patients completed the CAQ, along with the Body Sensations Questionnaire (BSQ) and the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN). To determine the discriminative validity (phase 3), we compared the CAQ scores of two subgroups formed with patients from phase 1 (n = 98), according to the diagnoses of panic disorder and agoraphobia, obtained with the MINI - Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview.
Results:
A 2-factor solution was the most interpretable (46.4% of the variance). Subscales were named "Fear and Hypervigilance" (n=9; alpha = 0.88), and "Avoidance", (n = 5; alpha = 0.82). Significant correlation was found between factor 1 and the BSQ total score (p<0.01), but not with factor 2. SPIN factors showed significant correlations with CAQ subscales (p < 0.01). In phase 3, "Cardiac with panic" patients scored significantly higher in CAQ factor 1 (t = -3.42; p < 0.01, CI = -1.02 to -0.27), and higher, but not significantly different, in factor 2 (t = -1.98; p = 0.51, CI = -0.87 to 0.00).
Conclusions:
These results provide a definite Brazilian validated version of the CAQ, adequate to clinical and research settings.
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