Psychometric Properties of the Chinese Version of the Psy-Flex Among Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This research aimed to translate the original English version of the Psy-Flex, a scale of psychological flexibility, into Chinese and to test its psychometric properties among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Two phases were conducted: (1) translation from English to Chinese (Psy-Flex-C), followed by a semantic equivalence evaluation between two versions, a pre-test, and an evaluation of the Psy-Flex-C in terms of face validity with 20 parents of autistic children, and content validity of the Psy-Flex-C with eight experts. (2) A cross-sectional study with 248 parents of autistic children was conducted for validation, and a subgroup of 50 participants was randomly selected to assess the test-retest reliability at a 2-week interval. The Psy-Flex-C showed satisfactory semantic equivalence with the original version and demonstrated adequate internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.84) and test-retest stability (weighted kappa statistic = 0.88). Concurrent validity was supported by a moderate correlation between the Psy-Flex-C and the Comprehensive Assessment of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Processes (Pearson's r = 0.54, p < 0.01). The Psy-Flex-C showed a significant mean score difference between parents with high and low parenting stress (t = 5.43, p < 0.001). Similar to the original scale, confirmatory factor analysis showed the best fitting one-factor structure of the Psy-Flex-C (X²/df = 1.62, p = 0.13, RMSEA = 0.05, GFI = 0.99, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.98, SRMR = 0.023). The Psy-Flex-C can be a reliable and valid instrument to self-report psychological flexibility in parents of children with ASD. Future research is recommended to test the Psy-Flex-C using diverse samples from different cultures and contexts to enhance its generalizability.