The mental health continuum-short form: The structure and application for cross-cultural studies-A 38 nation study

Żemojtel-Piotrowska M 1 , Piotrowski JP 2 , Osin EN 3 , Cieciuch J 1 , Adams BG 4 , Ardi R 5 Show all authors , Bălţătescu S 6 , Bogomaz S 7 , Bhomi AL 8 , Clinton A 9 , de Clunie GT 10 , Czarna AZ 11 , Esteves C 12 , Gouveia V 13 , Halik MHJ 14 , Hosseini A 15 , Khachatryan N 16 , Kamble SV 17 , Kawula A 18 , Lun VM 19 , Ilisko D 20 , Klicperova-Baker M 21 , Liik K 22 , Letovancova E 23 , Cerrato SM 24 , Michalowski J 25 , Malysheva N 26 , Marganski A 27 , Nikolic M 28 , Park J 29 , Paspalanova E 30 , de Leon PP 31 , Pék G 32 , Różycka-Tran J 33 , Samekin A 34 , Shahbaz W 35 , Khanh Ha TT 36 , Tiliouine H 37 , Van Hiel A 38 , Vauclair M 39 , Wills-Herrera E 40 , Włodarczyk A 41 , Yahiiaev I 42 , Maltby J 43

Affiliations 

  • 1 Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University, Warsaw, Poland
  • 2 University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poznan Campus, Poland
  • 3 National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
  • 4 Tilburg University, The Netherlands, Poland
  • 5 Airlangga University, Indonesia
  • 6 University of Oradea, Romania
  • 7 National Research Tomsk State University
  • 8 Tribhuvan University
  • 9 University of Puerto Rico, American Psychological Association
  • 10 Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá
  • 11 Jagellonian University, Poland
  • 12 Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIS-IUL, Lisboa, Portugal
  • 13 Federal University of Paraíba, Brasil
  • 14 University of Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia
  • 15 University of Melbourne, Australia
  • 16 Yerevan State University, Armenia
  • 17 Karnatak University, India
  • 18 Pedagogic University in Cracov, Poland
  • 19 Lingnan University, China
  • 20 Daugavpils University, Latvia
  • 21 Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Czech
  • 22 Tallinn University, Estonia
  • 23 Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia
  • 24 University of Girona, Spain
  • 25 University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poznan Campus
  • 26 Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
  • 27 Le Moyne College, US
  • 28 LUM University
  • 29 Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, Japan
  • 30 New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria
  • 31 Universidad Católica del Uruguay, Uruguay
  • 32 University of Debrecen, Hungary
  • 33 University of Gdansk, Poland
  • 34 S. Toraighyrov Pavlodar State University, Kazakhstan
  • 35 Massey University, Australia
  • 36 University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU, Hanoi, Vietnam
  • 37 Oran University, Algeria
  • 38 Ghent University, Belgium
  • 39 Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL)
  • 40 Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia
  • 41 Universidad Católica del Norte (Chile)
  • 42 Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine
  • 43 University of Leicester, United Kingdom
J Clin Psychol, 2018 06;74(6):1034-1052.
PMID: 29380877 DOI: 10.1002/jclp.22570

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) is a brief scale measuring positive human functioning. The study aimed to examine the factor structure and to explore the cross-cultural utility of the MHC-SF using bifactor models and exploratory structural equation modelling.

METHOD: Using multigroup confirmatory analysis (MGCFA) we examined the measurement invariance of the MHC-SF in 38 countries (university students, N = 8,066; 61.73% women, mean age 21.55 years).

RESULTS: MGCFA supported the cross-cultural replicability of a bifactor structure and a metric level of invariance between student samples. The average proportion of variance explained by the general factor was high (ECV = .66), suggesting that the three aspects of mental health (emotional, social, and psychological well-being) can be treated as a single dimension of well-being.

CONCLUSION: The metric level of invariance offers the possibility of comparing correlates and predictors of positive mental functioning across countries; however, the comparison of the levels of mental health across countries is not possible due to lack of scalar invariance. Our study has preliminary character and could serve as an initial assessment of the structure of the MHC-SF across different cultural settings. Further studies on general populations are required for extending our findings.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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