Confirmatory factor analysis of the Comprehensive Assessment of acceptance and Commitment Therapy (CompACT) in active-duty military personnel

The study tested both the original 23-item three-factor CompACT model and an 18-item three-factor version that removed five openness-to-experience items.

“In addition to the three-factor structure with 23 items proposed by Francis et al. (2016), we tested the three-factor structure of the CompACT-18 with five of the items from the OE subscale removed, as has been suggested by Trindade et al. (2021) in the refinement and validation of the Portuguese version.”

• cites Francis et al. (2016) sourcePartly supported

  Section 3.4 (pp. 71–72) supports a three-factor CompACT structure, but the version described in our copy retains 30 items, not 23. The citing sentence attributes the 18-item version and its five removed openness-to-experience items to Trindade et al., not to Francis et al.; those details are not part of this citation's claim. (LLM, conf=0.83)

  Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
• cites Trindade et al. (2021) sourceNot checked — no full text of the source

The authors note that the CompACT-18 may reduce completion time and burden while being useful for assessing treatment targets and progress.

“our findings indicate that the CompACT-18 may be useful in measuring PF for assessing treatment targets and progress, with the benefit of reducing the time and burden for completion in either research or clinical settings.”

The CompACT-18 total score and subscales had acceptable to good internal consistency.

“The internal consistency for the CompACT-18 total score (α = 0.861) and OE (α = 0.768), BA (α = 0.822), and VA (α = 0. 802) subscales was acceptable to good.”

The authors conclude that the English-language CompACT-18 can be used as a three-factor measure of psychological flexibility in English-speaking samples such as U.S. military personnel who may benefit from weight management intervention.

“The current study supports the use of the English language version of the CompACT-18 as a three-factor measure of PF in English-speaking samples such as U.S. military personnel who may benefit from weight management intervention.”

The three-factor model of the CompACT-23 did not fit the data well.

“All of the descriptive estimators fell outside of the acceptable range except for χ2/df (χ2/df = 2.04, CFI = 0.809, TLI = 0.787, RMSEA = 0.081, SRMR = 0.083). This indicates that the model did not fit the data well descriptively, thus model evaluation did not proceed.”

All standardized factor loadings in the CompACT-18 were large and significant, and the factor correlations were weak to moderate.

“Standardized factor loadings for all items were large and significant (ps < 0.001; Figure 1) for each subscale: OE loadings ranged from 0.551 to 0.867, BA loadings ranged from 0.580 to 0.773, and VA loadings ranged from 0.495 to 0.657. Correlations between factors were weak to moderate: OE and BA (r = 0.642), OE and VA (r = 0.318), BA and VA (r = 0.605),”

The Openness to Experience subscale showed the weakest relationships with the convergent validity measures, indicating the least convergent validity among the subscales.

“The OE subscale showed the weakest relationships with these, except for the PC-PTSD correlation, thus exhibiting the least convergent validity of the subscales.”

Among the subscales, Behavioral Awareness showed the strongest correlations with weight-related experiential avoidance, anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction.

“Of the three subscales, BA subscale scores showed the strongest correlations with the AAQW-R, GAD-2, PHQ-2, and SWLS scores.”

The CompACT-18 showed improved and acceptable-to-good model fit relative to the CompACT-23.

“All of the descriptive fit indices showed improvement from Model 1 and three indicated acceptable or good model fit (χ2/df = 1.73, CFI = 0.889, TLI = 0.871, RMSEA = 0.069, SRMR = 0.074).”

The CompACT-18 total score was moderately negatively correlated with weight-related experiential avoidance, perceived stress, anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms, and moderately positively correlated with life satisfaction.

“Consistent with hypotheses, the CompACT-18 total score was moderately, negatively correlated with AAQW-R, PSS, GAD-2, PHQ-2, and PC-PTSD scores, and moderately positively correlated with the SWLS score.”

The study's convergent validity findings were described as the first conducted with the English-language CompACT-18 and as expanding prior Portuguese-language work to broader quality-of-life and mental health measures.

“the present convergent validity findings are the only conducted with the English-language CompACT-18 and expand on those conducted in the Portuguese-language version to include broader measures of quality of life and mental health functioning.”

The study was conducted in 178 adult active-duty military personnel, mostly Navy, who were at risk of failing the Navy physical fitness assessment and/or had overweight or obese BMI.

“Participants (N = 178) were adult active-duty military personnel (98.3% Navy, 1.7% Marine) who failed or were at risk of failing the Navy’s physical fitness assessment and/or whose body mass index (BMI) was classified as overweight/obese”

The CompACT was used to assess psychological flexibility in this sample, and the 18 items were extracted from the administered CompACT-23 for the current analyses.

“The CompACT-23 was administered to participants, of which the 18 items were extracted for the current analyses.”

The study examined the factor structure and psychometric properties of the CompACT in U.S. military personnel enrolled in a weight management randomized controlled trial.

“The current study examined the factor structure and psychometric properties of the CompACT in U.S. military personnel who enrolled in a weight management randomized controlled trial.”

The sample had a mean age of 29.15 years and a mean BMI of 33.13 kg/m2.

“Of the 178 participants (98.3% Navy, 1.7% Marines), more than half were female (61.8%), and the mean age was 29.15 years (SD = 6.93).”

Future studies are needed to confirm the factor structure and other psychometric properties of the measure and to establish sensitivity to change.

“more research is needed to confirm the present factor structure and other psychometric properties of the measure. Longitudinal studies using the CompACT-18 are needed to establish sensitivity to change.”

The CompACT is a three-factor measure of psychological flexibility with subscales for Openness to Experience, Valued Action, and Behavioral Awareness.

“The Comprehensive Assessment of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (CompACT) is a three-factor measure of PF (Openness to Experience, Valued Action, and Behavioral Awareness)”