National Institute for Health and Care Research

Measure

Brief Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (BEAQ)

Age range 18
Completion time 5 minutes
Respondent Self Report
Problem areas
Anxiety

Overview

Developed from the original 62-Item Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (MEAQ) developed by Gamez et al., (2011) the Brief Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (BEAQ; Gámez et al., 2014) is a measure of experiential avoidance (e.g., avoid or escape from unwanted internal experiences, such as uncomfortable emotions, thoughts, memories, or sensations. The BEAQ includes 15 Items with content taken from each of the MEAQ’s six dimensions ((behavioural avoidance, distress aversion, distraction/suppression, repression/denial, distress endurance, and procrastination).

Scoring & Interpretation

The BEAQ is scored using a Likert scale ranging from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 6 (“strongly agree”). The instructions read: “Please indicate to what extent you agree or disagree with each of the following statements.” An example item is: “I quickly cut short any situation that makes me uncomfortable.” Item 6 is reverse scored. Scores range from 15 to 90, with higher scores indicating higher levels of experiential avoidance.

Psychometric Properties

Internal Consistency

The 15-item BEAQ demonstrated good internal consistency reliability, with Cronbach's alpha values typically ranging from .86 to .89 in community samples and .83 in clinical samples.

Test-Retest Reliability

Factor Structure

One factor structure supported in the original development paper.

Validity

The BEAQ has demonstrated convergent validity correlating positively with measures of anxiety, depression and psychological inflexibility (e.g., AAQ-II). It also demonstrates good discriminant validity by showing lower, yet still significant, associations with unrelated constructs, distinguishing experiential avoidance from general personality traits or negative affect.

Measurement Invariance

Access


Citation

Gámez, W., Chmielewski, M., Kotov, R., Ruggero, C., Suzuki, N., & Watson, D. (2014). The Brief Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire: Development and initial validation. Psychological Assessment, 26(1), 35-45. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034473

Original Reference

Gámez, W., Chmielewski, M., Kotov, R., Ruggero, C., Suzuki, N., & Watson, D. (2014). The Brief Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire: Development and initial validation. Psychological Assessment, 26(1), 35-45. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034473

References

  • Borgogna, N. C. (2022). A discussion of measurement problems as they relate to the brief experiential avoidance questionnaire (BEAQ). In Symposium presented at the Association of contextual behavior science World Conference. https://contextualscience.org/sites/default/files/WC2022%20Symposium%20Details_0.pdf
  • Cao, H., Mak, Y. W., Li, H. Y., & Leung, D. Y. P. (2021). Chinese validation of the brief experiential avoidance questionnaire (BEAQ) in college students. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 19, 79–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/jcbs.2021.01.004
  • Schaeuffele, C., Knaevelsrud, C., Renneberg, B., & Boettcher, J. (2022). Psychometric properties of the German brief experiential avoidance questionnaire (BEAQ). Assessment, 29, 1406–1421. https://doi.org/10.1177/10731911211010955
  • ER, E., Wagener, A., Étienne, A.-M., & Vander Haegen, M. (2024). The Brief Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire: Validation of the French Version in Non-clinical Adults. Psychologica Belgica, 64(1), pp. 152–165.

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