Psychometric Evaluation of the Persian Version of Spontaneous Use of Imagery Scale in the Iranian Population

Background: In recent years, particular emphasis has been placed on the role of mental imagery in psychopathologies. Objectives: The current study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Spontaneous Use of Imagery Scale (SUIS-P) in the general Iranian population. Methods: The current psychometric study was carried out on 474 Iranian individuals in 2020 through convenience sampling. The SUIS, Ambiguous Scenarios Test relevant to Depressed Mood (AST-D), and Beck Depression Inventory-second edition (BDI-II) were filled out by the study subjects. Moreover, for the determination of divergent validity between the SUIS and BDI-II, the Pearson correlation was also used. Data analysis was performed by SPSS Software (version 24). Results: The internal consistency of the total score of the SUIS was acceptable (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.75). The significant positive relationship between the SUIS and AST-D (r = 0.34; P < 0.01) showed good convergent validity. No significant correlation was observed between the SUIS and BDI-II. Factor analysis using the principal component analysis with a varimax rotation introduced four factors. The four factors explained 0.55 of the total variance. Regarding construct validity, the inter-item correlation and item-total correlations of the SUIS-P were in an acceptable range. Conclusions: Based on the results, the SUIS has excellent psychometric properties in the Iranian population and can be used in research and therapeutic interventions.