Abstract:
According to Metacognitive Therapy, worry beliefs are an important concept, especially
in the formation of generalized anxiety disorder. This study aimed to develop a worry
belief scale for university students. The scale development process involved several key
steps to ensure its validity and reliability. Initially, qualitative interviews informed the
creation of an item pool, which was refined through expert feedback. The scale was
then administered, and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was used to identify the factor
structure, followed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to validate this structure. After
establishing structural validity, criterion validity was assessed, and reliability was
measured using an appropriate coefficient. Following these analyses, the Worry Belief
Scale was finalized with 27 items across three dimensions, demonstrating strong
psychometric properties. The dimensions were named positive beliefs, dangerousness
and harmfulness beliefs, and uncontrollability beliefs, respectively. The worry belief
scale was applied to a different sample and examined whether worry beliefs differed
according to the gender variable. A significant difference was found in the positive
beliefs dimension according to the gender variable. The findings obtained were
discussed in the light of the literature.
