The structure of the Readiness to Change Questionnaire: A test of Prochaska & DiClemente's transtheoretical model

The structure of the Readiness to Change Questionnaire (RCQ) is examined on a sample of 174 male heavy drinkers. It is shown that the RCQ items assessing the precontemplation, contemplation and action stages of Prochaska & DiClemente's model lack discriminant validity and that these three stages are not related in a simplex structure. A hierarchical factor model is fitted to the present data, producing a global second-order factor termed 'readiness to change'. It is shown that the RCQ items can be rescored to form a continuous measure of 'readiness to change' and evidence of the reliability and predictive validity of this scale is presented. The theoretical implications of these results are considered.