Translation
The Negative Effects Questionnaire (NEQ) has currently been translated into fourteen different languages. Most of the translations are made by an authorized translator and in accordance with the coordinated framework agreements in Sweden, thereby ensuring a high standard, satisfactory reliability, and that each translation is made in compliance with the quality certification ISO 9001:2008. If not, the translations have been made by an experienced clinical psychologist or researcher in clinical psychology and been back-translated to ensure that it is correct. Furthermore, each translation has also been reviewed by clinical psychologists with the given language as their native tongue in order to make sure that the translation is easy to comprehend, feels unsophisticated, and does not include words or expressions that are unfamiliar to most people.
Scoring
The self-report measure consists of three parts. First, respondents endorse specific items in case they have occurred or not during treatment, yes/no (dummy coded as a variable: 1/0). Second, the respondents rate how negatively the negative effect was on four-point Likert-scale, ranging from ”Not at all” to ”Extremely”, 0-4 (”0” being minimum and ”4” being maximum). Third, the respondents attribute the negative effect to ”The treatment I received” (1) or ”Other circumstances” (0) (dummy coded as a variable: 1/0).
The items can be summed together in order to get a frequency measure of the number of negative effects the respondents have experienced, divided by treatment or other circumstances. The mean and standard deviation of their average negative impact for the full self-report measure can also be presented. Finally, the individual factors can be examined in terms of their means and standard deviations.
To facilitate investigations using the self-report measure, the following spreadsheet can also be used: scoring matrix.
There is currently no consensus on how to interpret scores from a self-report measure on negative effects of psychological treatments. However, summing up the frequencies and providing information on means and standard deviations can help with comparisons between different samples. For more information, please see the references.
Download
The self-report measure is free to download and use in both clinical and research settings. If implemented in clinical trials or similar studies, please include a reference to its original evaluation.
32 Items
20 Items