Extended Abstract
1. Introduction
The term “schema” is being used in psychological texts since the early twentieth century,  and it seems that Bartlett  was the first one to mention the concept of schema in psychology and scope of memory. Schema therapy is an innovative approach and a combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy, the psychoanalytic object relations theory, attachment theory, and gestalt therapy that were established by Young et al. Since there is no questionnaire with proper validity and reliability to measure avoidance structure within the country, an instrument is needed to measure the amount of avoidance . Therefore, the present study  aims to assess the validity and reliability of the Persian version of Young-Rygh Avoidance Inventory and analyze its factors.  
2. Method
The current correlational study is of factor analysis type. Since the target is non-clinical population, the sample group consisted of 400 students from the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences studying in 2014-2015 academic year.  The participants were selected using convenient sampling. They participated voluntarily in the study with the knowledge of research purposes. The inclusion criteria were non-usage of psychological drugs, no psychological treatments, and informed consent to participate in the study. The subjects who completed less than 10% of the items in the questionnaire were excluded from the statistical analysis. According to experts, 5-10 subjects were required for each item of the validity and reliability evaluation questionnaires. Thus, 400 individuals were initially selected that reduced to 382 people (114 males and 268 females) with a mean age of 24.6 years as 18 questionnaires were excluded from the statistical analysis . A sample group of Avoidance Questionnaire, Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Young Overcompensation Inventory and Acceptance and Action Questionnaire- Second Edition (AAQ-II) were considered in this study. The missing data were replaced by the mean of each group. 
3. Results
KMO value obtained from the exploratory factor analysis equals to 0.79 and indicates the adequacy of the sample for analyzing the factors. The Bartlett level is also 6831.71, which is statistically significant (P<0.001). Factor analysis results show that 12 factors have been extracted, among which 8 factors, accounting for 54.92% of the total variance, could be interpreted. To improve the interpretability of these factors, Varimax rotation method was used. Extracted factors are as follows: isolation, substance abuse, denied dissatisfaction, rationality and extreme control, passively blocking troublesome excitement, psychotic symptoms, distraction, and denying internal experiences.
Questions having a factor coefficient less than 0.3 were excluded from the questionnaire, and the rotation of the factors showed that some factors, particularly factors that share common items, merged with other factors. The factor of intentionally not thinking about troublesome issues and the factor of denial of memories merged into denial of internal experiences, factor of anxiety downtime merged with factor of rationality and extreme control, and factor of avoidance through sleep, self-soothing and passive distraction merged with distraction factor. 
Factor of avoidance from turbulent situation, which has only one item (37) in the main questionnaire, was not loaded on any factor and was deleted. Generally, 13 items were not loaded in any of the factors and were removed from statistical analysis. To assess the convergent-divergent validity of the Avoidance Questionnaire, Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-II), Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition, Beck Anxiety Questionnaire, and the Young overcompensation inventory.
4. Discussion
After analyzing the factors of the avoidance questionnaire in the present study, eight  factors extracted. To verify the reliability of the questionnaire, alpha and test-retest were used to determine inner consistency and time reliability of the questionnaires. The factor of passively blocking emotions had the lowest internal stability and the temporal reliability and factors of denial of dissatisfaction, rationality, and extreme control had the highest internal and temporal reliability, respectively. These results are consistent with the results of studies by Spranger et al. (2001) [19], Sheffield et al. (2009) [20], and Zargar et al. (2011) [22] in which internal reliability of the questionnaire were 0.78, 0.67, 0.70, and 0.71, respectively. The temporal reliability of the questionnaire was measured through the test-retest method, and the results indicate the appropriate reliability of the questionnaire.
In the present study, to check the criterion validity, correlation was used between avoidance questionnaire and four questionnaires of Acceptance and Action Questionnaires (AAQ-II), Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition, Beck Anxiety Inventory, and the Extreme Compensation Questionnaire. Results obtained from the Pearson correlation test to assess convergent and reciprocal validity  showed that the Avoidance Questionnaire has negative relationship with the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire and has a positive relationship with Extreme Anxiety and Extreme Compensation.
These results indicate appropriate criterion validity for the Avoidance Questionnaire. To the best of our knowledge, there is no research on the validity of Young-Rygh Avoidance Inventory, and studies using this questionnaire only assessed the internal reliability of the questionnaire by Cronbach's Alpha . In the present study, consistent studies that assessed the validity of maladaptive schema questionnaire have been used. The significant relationship between the Avoidance Questionnaire and Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition and Beck’s Anxiety Questionnaire is consistent with the results of studies by Divandari et al. (2009) [28] and Fata et al. (2005) [29]. Correlation of Avoidance Questionnaire with Young’s Extreme Compensation Inventory was foreseeable as mentioned in the theoretical texts, and the strongest correlation was related to Young’s Extreme Compensation Questionnaire. In fact, from a theoretical point of view, extreme compensation is one of the avoidance mechanisms; therefore, this relation can be explained.
The results of this study show that the Persian version of Young-Rygh Avoidance Inventory has appropriate reliability and validity. The results of the diagnostic factor analysis showed that eight factors were extracted from this questionnaire. The result of the confirmatory factor analysis indicates that the model is adequately fit. Also this questionnaire was found to have appropriate (internal and temporal) criterion validity and reliability and can be used for research purposes in the Iranian population. However, like any other study, the findings of this study should be construed within the limits of its constraints. Since student population, i.e., non-clinical population, was used in this study, the results of this study cannot be generalized to the clinical group . Thus, future studies should assess psychoanalytic characteristics of this questionnaire in the clinical population.
Acknowledgments
University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences Student Research Committee has financially supported the present study.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.