Validation of the Serbian version of the Metacognitions Questionnaire-30 in nonclinical and clinical samples

Abstract

The Metacognitions Questionnaire (MCQ-30) is a brief multidimensional measure used for assessment of metacognitive beliefs in psychopathology. The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of MCQ-30 in Serbian nonclinical (n = 246) and clinical (n = 171; anxiety and depressive disorders) samples. The reliability of the questionnaire and its subscales was satisfactory. An exploratory factor analysis yielded a five-factor solution in both groups, whereas a confirmatory factor analysis showed a somewhat weaker fit of the model. The MCQ-30 showed positive associations with measures of anxiety, pathological worry, depressive, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms in both samples, demonstrating adequate convergent validity. The instrument was sensitive to differences in metacognitive beliefs between nonclinical and clinical samples. MCQ-30 subscales showed incremental contributions in predicting pathological worry after controlling for the variance in obsessive-compulsive symptoms and vice versa. Our results suggest that the MCQ-30 is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing metacognitive beliefs in both nonclinical and clinical samples. Moreover, the findings support the use of the MCQ-30 in Serbian population and extend support for the metacognitive model.