The Persian Checklist of Pleasant Events (PCPE): Development, Validity and Reliability

Experiencing ‎pleasant events during daily life ‎has a significant positive role in ‎the personal mental health and ‎acts as a keystone for "behavioral ‎activation" (BA) interventions. ‎There are serious differences in ‎the pleasant event schedules in ‎different cultures and countries. ‎We aimed to develop a Persian ‎checklist of pleasant events ‎‎(PCPE) to provide and validate a ‎culturally compatible checklist for ‎Iranians.‎

To develop a checklist ‎of pleasant events, inspired by ‎Pleasant Events Schedule (PES) ‎‎(MacPhillamy & Lewinsohn, ‎‎1982), we held three focused ‎group discussions with 24 normal ‎healthy participants from both ‎genders (female = 12) and asked ‎them to mention as much ‎pleasant events as possible. ‎When the list reached saturation ‎level, the inappropriate items with ‎respect to legal, cultural and ‎religious concerns were omitted. ‎The final checklist of PCPE ‎consists of two subscales: ‎Frequency (frequency of events ‎during last month) and ‎pleasantness (perceived ‎pleasantness of events). The total ‎score consists of frequency ‎multiplied by pleasantness. To ‎test the reliability and validity of ‎the checklist, the PCPE, ‎Depression, Anxiety and Stress ‎Scale (DASS), the Persian ‎version of WHO Quality of Life ‎and the Demographic ‎Questionnaire were administered ‎in a sample of 104 participants ‎‎(50 male and 54 female).‎

Frequency, ‎pleasantness and the total scores ‎of PCPE showed high levels of ‎internal consistency (Cronbach's ‎alpha, .976, .976 & .974, ‎respectively). Further support for ‎the convergent validity of the ‎PCPE was obtained via ‎moderate negative correlations ‎with depression, anxiety, stress ‎scores in DASS and positive ‎correlation with quality of life as ‎well as respondent's perceived ‎happiness. There were negative ‎correlations between frequency, ‎pleasantness and total scores ‎and age of the participants ‎‎(Pearson correlation coefficient, r ‎‎= -.194, p<0.05; r = -.270, p<0.01 ‎& r = -.234, p<0.05, respectively).‎ Conclusion ‏:‏ ‎ PCPE as an ‎assessment tool has shown to ‎have good reliability and validity ‎among Iranians. Further steps ‎should be taken to validate this ‎instrument in different ‎psychopathologies such as ‎depression, addiction and ‎obesity. ‎.