A scale development study on early psychological symptoms in the pandemic: Cognitive flexibility, distress tolerance, resilience and power to predict symptoms of traumatic stress

This study was planned in two stages. In the first stage, it was aimed to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool to learn and measure the "psychological symptoms" that emerged immediately after the Covid-19 epidemic, which affected the whole world in a short time and suddenly stopped daily life. In the second stage, the extent to which the variables of resilience, traumatic stress, distress tolerance and cognitive flexibility predicted the psychological symptoms due to the pandemic were examined. In this direction, Demographic Information Form, Connor Davidson Resilience Scale, Effect of Events Scale, Distress Tolerance Scale, and Cognitive Flexibility Scale were used. In the first stage, an item pool was created based on literature review and observations. The final version of the scale form, on which a consensus was reached, was presented to the expert opinion. Data were collected from two different study groups with similar demographic characteristics using a 53-item scale. The first group consisted of 1536 (men and women), and the second group (men and women) consisted of 1266 people. With the first data set (n= 1536), exploratory factor analysis was performed with varimax vertical rotation, the principal component analysis method, for scale and construct validity. As a result of the analysis, a 30-item scale was obtained, which explained 58% of the total variance consisting of the four-factor "Stress Symptoms, Adaptive Fear and Worry, Traumatic Symptoms, Behavioral Symptoms" sub-dimensions. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed with the second group (n=1266) to support the conformity structure of the data. The fit indices of the model formed as a result of the analysis were found at an acceptable level. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated by using two data sets for the reliability analysis of the scale. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated by using two data sets for the reliability analysis of the scale. The Cronbach Alpha value was found to be .94 for the first group and .96 for the second group, respectively. In the second stage, multiple regression analysis was performed with the data of the first group (n=1536) in order to understand how strongly the variables of resilience, traumatic stress, resilience and cognitive flexibility predicted the Psychological symptoms due to Covid-19. The stepwise method was used and it was seen that it explained 47% of the variance.