Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011 Aug;25(6):777-82.
doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2011.03.013. Epub 2011 Apr 1.

Self reported attentional control with the Attentional Control Scale: factor structure and relationship with symptoms of anxiety and depression

Ragnar P Ólafsson  1 , Jakob Smári, Fríður Guðmundsdóttir, Gunnhildur Olafsdóttir, Hrafnhildur L Harðardóttir, Svavar M Einarsson
Affiliations

Self reported attentional control with the Attentional Control Scale: factor structure and relationship with symptoms of anxiety and depression

Ragnar P Ólafsson et al. J Anxiety Disord. 2011 Aug.

Abstract

The Attentional Control Scale (ACS) is a self-report questionnaire that has been developed to measure individual differences in attentional control. Despite its fairly widespread use, little is known about the psychometric properties of the scale in adult samples. In the present study, factor structure of the ACS and its relationship with symptoms of anxiety and depression was investigated in a total sample of 728 Icelandic university students. Exploratory factor analysis in sample 1 (n=361), yielded two factors, labeled focusing and shifting. Confirmatory factor analysis in sample 2 (n=367) showed a reasonable fit of this two factor model. The two factors correlated strongly (0.73). The two subscales showed different predictive validity in a set of hierarchical regression analyses where the focusing subscale made a significant prediction of anxiety scores when depression scores were controlled for, and the shifting subscale significant prediction of depression scores when anxiety scores were controlled for. These findings are discussed in relation to previous studies on attentional and executive control in anxiety and depression.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles