Evaluación de las estrategias de control de pensamientos no deseados en población de edad avanzada

This works aimed to analyze the psychometric properties in older adults of a 15 items Spanish version of the Thought Control Questionnaire, which was originally composed by 30 items assessing five thought control strategies for unwanted thoughts: Distraction, Social Control, Worry, Reappraisal and Punishment. With group discussions with older adults, three items were selected for each sub-scale and the more adequate redaction for each item was discussed. 142 individuals 55 years old or over completed that new version of the questionnaire, TCQ-15, together with other measures. Results supported the convergent validity of all of the subscales, except for Distraction. Likewise, internal consistency for the sub-scales is acceptable, considering their short sizes. Factor structure is not totally clear; although it mostly reproduces the theoretical structure, Reappraisal appear as more relevant than other strategies and it seems to explain information of other dimensions. It is discussed that this outcome could be explained by a different way of coping with unwanted thoughts in the elderly, instead of by a fault in the scale.