The Loneliness Questionnaire-Short Version: an evaluation of reverse-worded and non-reverse-worded items via item response theory

Evaluating a Brief Big Five Personality Test in a Diverse Chinese Sample: The Role of Midpoint Designs and Reversely-Worded Items

Response styles present a threat to the validity of data from Likert scales. This study evaluates a brief personality test administered by interviewers to a diverse Chinese sample, focusing on two factors with direct impacts on response styles, the midpoint designs and the inclusion of reversely-worded items. We randomly assign respondents into three midpoint designs: masked midpoint, explicit midpoint and removed midpoint. Cronbach's alpha tends to be low and is not drastically affected by midpoint designs. Score reliability estimates from the removed and explicit midpoint designs are above or close to .60 along the whole score range for openness, but not the other subscales. The masked midpoint design presents some advantages in criterion relationship validity evidence based on correlations with demographic, behavioral, subjective and cognitive variables. Dropping reversely-worded items increases the estimates of Cronbach's alpha, but shows no positive effects on the criterion relationship validity. In conclusion, for interviewer-administered brief personality scales applied to Chinese respondents, masked midpoint design that aims to reduce a possible overuse of midpoint presents some advantages in the overall psychometric properties, but the inclusion of reversely-worded items shows mixed effects.

A Multi-Method Examination of Peer Functioning in Children with and without Cognitive Disengagement Syndrome

OBJECTIVE

Cognitive disengagement syndrome (CDS) includes excessive daydreaming, mental confusion, and hypoactive behaviors that are distinct from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder inattentive (ADHD-IN) symptoms. A growing number of studies indicate that CDS symptoms may be associated with ratings of social withdrawal. However, it is important to examine this association in children specifically recruited for the presence or absence of CDS, and to incorporate multiple methods including direct observations of peer interactions. The current study builds on previous research by recruiting children with and without clinically elevated CDS symptoms and using a multi-method, multi-informant design including recess observations and parent, teacher, and child rating scales.

METHOD

Participants were 207 children in grades 2-5 (63.3% male), including 103 with CDS and 104 without CDS, closely matched on grade and sex.

RESULTS

Controlling for family income, medication status, internalizing symptoms, and ADHD-IN severity, children with CDS were observed during recess to spend more time alone or engaging in parallel play, as well as less time involved in direct social interactions, than children without CDS. Children with CDS were also rated by teachers as being more asocial, shy, and socially disinterested than children without CDS. Although children with and without CDS did not differ on parent- or self-report ratings of shyness or social disinterest, children with CDS rated themselves as lonelier than children without CDS.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings indicate that children with CDS have a distinct profile of peer functioning and point to the potential importance of targeting withdrawal in interventions for youth with elevated CDS symptoms.

The Stress Phenotyping Framework: A multidisciplinary biobehavioral approach for assessing and therapeutically targeting maladaptive stress physiology

Although dysregulated stress biology is becoming increasingly recognized as a key driver of lifelong disparities in chronic disease, we presently have no validated biomarkers of toxic stress physiology; no biological, behavioral, or cognitive treatments specifically focused on normalizing toxic stress processes; and no agreed-upon guidelines for treating stress in the clinic or evaluating the efficacy of interventions that seek to reduce toxic stress and improve human functioning. We address these critical issues by (a) systematically describing key systems and mechanisms that are dysregulated by stress; (b) summarizing indicators, biomarkers, and instruments for assessing stress response systems; and (c) highlighting therapeutic approaches that can be used to normalize stress-related biopsychosocial functioning. We also present a novel multidisciplinary Stress Phenotyping Framework that can bring stress researchers and clinicians one step closer to realizing the goal of using precision medicine-based approaches to prevent and treat stress-associated health problems.

Comparing the Psychometric Properties of a Scale Across Three Likert and Three Alternative Formats: An Application to the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale

Zhang and Savalei proposed an alternative scale format to the Likert format, called the Expanded format. In this format, response options are presented in complete sentences, which can reduce acquiescence bias and method effects. The goal of the current study was to compare the psychometric properties of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) in the Expanded format and in two other alternative formats, relative to several versions of the traditional Likert format. We conducted two studies to compare the psychometric properties of the RSES across the different formats. We found that compared with the Likert format, the alternative formats tend to have a unidimensional factor structure, less response inconsistency, and comparable validity. In addition, we found that the Expanded format resulted in the best factor structure among the three alternative formats. Researchers should consider the Expanded format, especially when creating short psychological scales such as the RSES.

Psychometrics of the Pearlin Mastery Scale among Family Caregivers of Older Adults Who Require Assistance in Activities of Daily Living

This study examined the psychometric properties of the seven-item mastery scale among 392 family caregivers of care dependent older adults in a tertiary hospital in Singapore. Item response theory (IRT) analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to assess the scale's psychometric properties. Construct validity was assessed based on correlations between mastery and caregiver burden, depression, and quality of life. Data from the seven-item mastery scale showed acceptable reliability and model fit while IRT analysis showed that response categories were ordered but reflected poor fit for the two positively worded items. Without these two items, responses on the five-item version showed acceptable model fit and had acceptable reliability and high correlation with those on the seven-item version. Item responses on both the seven- and five-item versions show logical correlations with carer self-report on burden, depression, and quality of life. Further psychometric studies of the seven-item mastery scale are warranted. For practical applications such as caregiver screening during hospital admissions, the five-item mastery scale is fit for purpose.

Emotion regulation patterns: Capturing variability and flexibility in emotion regulation in an experience sampling study

Variability and flexibility in emotion regulation (ER) are considered important ingredients in adaptive ER. Few attempts at operationalizing variability and flexibility in ER have been made. In two 10‐day experience sampling studies (N = 51 and 39), healthy participants rated their momentary emotions and their ER efforts in response to those emotions. We evaluated the association between ER (i.e., between and within ER strategy variability and ER flexibility, operationalized as putatively adaptive, putatively maladaptive and total strategies) and measures of well‐being (psychological distress, satisfaction with life) in general (person‐level) and in everyday life (day‐level). Higher within‐variability indicated that a strategy was used more at some occasions and less at others. Higher between‐variability indicated variation in the extent to which different strategies were engaged at the same time point. Overall, results were mixed, but in some instances, indicators of ER variability and ER flexibility were related to each other and measures of well‐being differently. Total within ER variability was negatively associated with well‐being at the person and day level. Putatively adaptive between and within ER variability were associated with less well‐being at the person level. At the day level, putatively adaptive and maladaptive between ER variability and maladaptive within ER variability were negatively associated with well‐being. Putatively adaptive ER flexibility was negatively associated with satisfaction with life. This study adds to the literature on indicators of variability and flexibility in ER and their potential adaptiveness. The results indicate that variability in ER could be a maladaptive property, but more research is needed to understand this in terms of putatively adaptive and maladaptive strategies. Future studies on the adaptiveness of these indicators should obtain more contextual information.

The Impact of Item Feature and Response Preference in a Mixed-Format Design

A combination of positively and negatively worded items (termed a mixed-format design) has been widely adopted in personality and attitude assessments. While advocates claim that the inclusion of positively and negatively worded items will encourage respondents to process the items more carefully and avoid response preference, others have reported that negatively worded (NW) items may induce a nuisance factor and contaminate scale scores. The present study examined the extent of the impact of the NW-item feature and further investigated whether a mixed-format design could effectively control acquiescence and the preference for extreme response options using two datasets (Attitude toward Peace Walls, and International Personality Item Pool). A proposed multidimensional item response model was implemented to simultaneously estimate the impact of item feature and response preference. The results suggested that NW items induced an impact on item responses and that affirmative preference was negligible, regardless of the proportion of NW items in a scale. However, participants' extremity preference was large in both balanced and imbalanced mixed-format designs. It concludes that the impact of the NW-item feature is not negligible in a mixed-format scale, which exhibits good control of acquiescence but not extremity preference.

The Perceived Social Support for Job Search Activity Scale (PSS-JSAS): A psychometric evaluation in the context of Ghana

Lack of social support can have a profound impact on the job search efforts of young adults. The Perceived Social Support for Job Search Activity Scale (PSS-JSAS) was developed to assess the quality of social support a job seeker receives during a job search. Building on this previous work, the present study assessed the PSS-JSAS’s factor structure, construct validity, reliability, and measurement invariance in the context of Ghana. Data for the present analysis were provided by 429 recent university graduates. The sample was randomly split into two subsamples for exploratory factor analysis (EFA; n = 223) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; n = 206). EFA and parallel analysis with the first subsample suggested a single factor structure, comprising 6 items out of the original 8 items. In CFA with the second subsample, the construct validity of the single factor structure was found to be optimal. Multi-group CFA with the second subsample showed that the single factor structure was invariant across gender. Further, reliability analysis on the total sample and the subsamples demonstrated good internal consistency reliability for the 6 items. The validity evidence obtained in this study suggests that the PSS-JSAS has good psychometric properties and is thus suitable for assessing social support for job search efforts of university graduates.

Religious fundamentalism, right-wing authoritarianism, and meaning in life

OBJECTIVE

Two studies examined the relationship between right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and religious fundamentalism (RF), and tested their unique contributions to meaning in life (MIL).

METHOD

We recruited Amazon Mechanical Turk Participants located in the United States. Studies 1 (N = 827) included measures of RWA, RF, and global MIL. Study 2 (N = 809) additionally included measures of the facets of global MIL (existential significance, purpose, and coherence), and intrinsic religiosity.

RESULTS

In both studies, RWA, RF, and MIL were positively correlated. Partial correlations and structural equation modeling showed that, when modeled together, RF significantly contributes to MIL and RWA facets were either unrelated or negatively related. Study 2 extended these results to show that RF primarily contributed positively to global MIL through existential significance, rather than purpose or coherence. When modeled jointly with intrinsic religiosity, religious fundamentalism no longer contributed to MIL.

CONCLUSIONS

These studies demonstrate that RF positively contributes to the experience of MIL, and that the link between RWA and MIL arises from their mutual overlap with RF. The link between RF and MIL is about religiosity, rather than fundamentalism. Implications are discussed.

A Systematic Review of the Development and Psychometric Properties of Loneliness Measures for Children and Adolescents

This paper reviews the three most commonly used measures of loneliness for children and adolescents (children: Loneliness and Aloneness Scale for Children and Adolescents [LACA] and Children’s Loneliness and Social Dissatisfaction Scale [CLS]; adolescents: UCLA Loneliness Scale [UCLA] and LACA). Loneliness is a pertinent issue across populations and affects the mental health and academic achievement of children and adolescents. To date, there has been no thorough examination of the loneliness measures for this age group. We examine how each of the three measures was developed, and assess the psychometric properties of those measures, gaining insight into whether they are valid and reliable assessments of loneliness. Results suggest that the UCLA Loneliness Scale is the most popular measure of loneliness for use with adolescents, but it does not have robust psychometric properties for that group. For children, the CLS appears most suitable. Results of the review identify gaps in aspects of measure development, with no measure having been developed with children or adolescents. Implications for future loneliness measurement research are considered.

A latent class analysis of parent-child discrepancies in reports of peer victimization: Associations to child sexual abuse status and psychological adjustment

Researchers face an important challenge when assessing peer victimization in children, since self-reports are often discrepant with parent-reports. A latent class analysis identified patterns of response to items assessing peer victimization, which were either divergent or convergent between the parent and the child. Classes were then compared on the child sexual abuse status and on various behavioral and social outcomes. Participants were 720 school-aged child victims of sexual abuse and a comparison group of 173 nonvictims and their caregivers. We identified two discordant subgroups (self-identified and parent-identified) and two concordant groups (nonvictims and concordant victims of peer victimization). Compared to children of the comparison group, sexually abused children were five times more likely to be identified as targets of peer victimization solely by their parent than the contrary. Sexually abused children with concordant reports of peer victimization showed the poorest adjustment on all studied outcomes assessed 6 months later. Children who discounted experiencing peer victimization while their parent reported it were also at risk of maladjustment. Results underscore the importance of supplementing self-reports with other available sources of information, especially in young and vulnerable populations who may be inclined to discount their victimization experiences.

I deserve more A's: A report on the development of a measure of academic entitlement

This paper reports the results of a multi-stage effort to develop a measure of Academic Entitlement. An empirical/rational approach was taken to develop items and reduce the item set for a final version of the Academic Entitlement Scale (AES). The measure includes seven dimensions: Accommodation, Reward for Effort, Responsibility Avoidance, Grade Haggling, Customer Orientation, Customer Service Expectations, and General Academic Entitlement. Fit, using Confirmatory Factor Analysis, for the seven-factor correlated model and a bifactor model including General AE and the six specific factors, was good. The full measure is reported along with descriptive statistics for the scale and preliminary validation evidence.

Advancing the Multi-Informant Assessment of Sluggish Cognitive Tempo: Child Self-Report in Relation to Parent and Teacher Ratings of SCT and Impairment

Despite increasing interest in sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) in children and advancements in its measurement, little research has examined child self-reported SCT. Child self-report of SCT is important for the multi-informant assessment of SCT. The current study used a large, school-based sample of children and a multi-informant design to examine child self-reported SCT using the Child Concentration Inventory - Version 2 (CCI-2) which was recently revised based on meta-analytic findings and parallels the item content of validated parent and teacher rating scales. The study involved 2142 unique children (ages 8-13 years, 50.51% males). Children (n = 1980) completed measures of SCT, loneliness, and preference for solitude. Mothers (n = 1648), fathers (n = 1358), and teachers (n = 1773) completed measures of SCT, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder-IN (ADHD-IN), academic impairment, social impairment, and conflicted shyness. Children's self-reported SCT demonstrated good reliability with the 15 SCT symptoms showing moderate to strong loadings on the SCT factor. The child self-report SCT factor also showed moderate convergent validity with mother, father, and teacher ratings of children's SCT. In addition, higher child-reported SCT predicted greater mother, father, and teacher ratings of children's academic impairment even after controlling for mother, father, and teacher ratings of children's SCT and ADHD-IN. Higher child-rated SCT also predicted greater mother ratings of children's social impairment after controlling for mother ratings of children's SCT and ADHD-IN. The present study provides initial empirical support for the reliability and validity of child-reported SCT as part of the multi-informant assessment of SCT. A key direction for future research includes evaluating the unique contributions of different informants and their utility within specific contexts to guide evidence-based recommendations for assessing SCT.

Recover recovery style from psychosis: a psychometric evaluation of the German version of the Recovery Style Questionnaire (RSQ)

AIMS

The way an individual handles the experience of psychosis, the so-called 'recovery style', has been shown to substantially affect long-term outcomes. The Recovery Style Questionnaire (RSQ) measures this psychological dimension. The aim of this study was to provide a validation of the German version of the RSQ and to raise awareness for recovery-oriented approaches.

METHODS

The RSQ was translated into German according to the guidelines of the WHO and patients were administered this questionnaire and measures of internalised stigma, psychotic symptoms, illness concept, empowerment, self-esteem and quality of life. Descriptive statistics were demonstrated to characterise the sample. Reliability was assessed in different forms: internal consistency, test-retest reliability and split-half reliability. Items were evaluated with descriptive data and item-total correlations. Convergent and discriminant validity were shown, and a confirmatory factor analysis was performed. In order to ameliorate the model, a post hoc model modification was done.

RESULTS

The sample consisted of 138 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (mean age: 35.7 years; 53.6% men; mean duration of illness: 20.6 years) with a mean RSQ overall percentage of 66.12 (s.d. ± 17.43%), mainly representing the categories 'mixed picture' and 'tends towards integration'. The reliability of the RSQ was acceptable with a Cronbach's α of 0.741 and a test-retest coefficient of 0.502. Item-total correlations were not acceptable for 27 of 39 items. Moderate evidence for convergent validity of the RSQ was found. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the 13-factor model with 39 items originally proposed was partially poorly replicated in the present sample (χ2 ratio to degrees of freedom (χ2/df) of 1.732, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) of 0.585, Normed Fit Index (NFI) of 0.414, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) of 0.508, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) of 0.095). The RSQ was modified based on item-total correlations and path coefficients of the single items. The confirmatory factor analysis of the resulting one-factor model with 11 items showed adequate fit to the data (χ2/df of 1.562, CFI of 0.936, NFI of 0.847, TLI of 0.910, RMSEA of 0.083) and demonstrated good model fit.

CONCLUSIONS

Despite partially insufficient psychometric data of the original RSQ, the concept of recovery style is beneficial to psychiatric research and clinical practice. The underlying idea is valuable, and the questionnaire needs further development. Therefore, a short version of the RSQ is proposed.

A Study of Reverse-Worded Matched Item Pairs Using the Generalized Partial Credit and Nominal Response Models

The generalized partial credit model (GPCM) is often used for polytomous data; however, the nominal response model (NRM) allows for the investigation of how adjacent categories may discriminate differently when items are positively or negatively worded. Ten items from three different self-reported scales were used (anxiety, depression, and perceived stress), and authors wrote an additional item worded in the opposite direction to pair with each original item. Sets of the original and reverse-worded items were administered, and responses were analyzed using the two models. The NRM fit significantly better than the GPCM, and it was able to detect category responses that may not function well. Positively worded items tended to be more discriminating than negatively worded items. For the depression scale, category boundary locations tended to have a larger range for the positively worded items than for the negatively worded items from both models. Some pairs of items functioned comparably when reverse-worded, but others did not. If an examinee responds in an extreme category to an item, the same examinee is not necessarily likely to respond in an extreme category at the opposite end of the rating scale to a similar item worded in the opposite direction. Results of this study may support the use of scales composed of items worded in the same direction, and particularly in the positive direction.

Advancing Concussion Assessment in Pediatrics (A-CAP): a prospective, concurrent cohort, longitudinal study of mild traumatic brain injury in children: protocol study

INTRODUCTION

Paediatric mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is a public health burden. Clinicians urgently need evidence-based guidance to manage mTBI, but gold standards for diagnosing and predicting the outcomes of mTBI are lacking. The objective of the Advancing Concussion Assessment in Pediatrics (A-CAP) study is to assess a broad pool of neurobiological and psychosocial markers to examine associations with postinjury outcomes in a large sample of children with either mTBI or orthopaedic injury (OI), with the goal of improving the diagnosis and prognostication of outcomes of paediatric mTBI.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

A-CAP is a prospective, longitudinal cohort study of children aged 8.00-16.99 years with either mTBI or OI, recruited during acute emergency department (ED) visits at five sites from the Pediatric Emergency Research Canada network. Injury information is collected in the ED; follow-up assessments at 10 days and 3 and 6 months postinjury measure a variety of neurobiological and psychosocial markers, covariates/confounders and outcomes. Weekly postconcussive symptom ratings are obtained electronically. Recruitment began in September 2016 and will occur for approximately 24 months. Analyses will test the major hypotheses that neurobiological and psychosocial markers can: (1) differentiate mTBI from OI and (2) predict outcomes of mTBI. Models initially will focus within domains (eg, genes, imaging biomarkers, psychosocial markers), followed by multivariable modelling across domains. The planned sample size (700 mTBI, 300 OI) provides adequate statistical power and allows for internal cross-validation of some analyses.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

The ethics boards at all participating institutions have approved the study and all participants and their parents will provide informed consent or assent. Dissemination will follow an integrated knowledge translation plan, with study findings presented at scientific conferences and in multiple manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals.

A comparison of self-report measures of psychopathy among nonforensic samples using item response theory analyses

This study investigated how well components of the psychopathy trait are measured among college students with the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP), the Personality Assessment Inventory-Antisocial Features Scale (PAI ANT), the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Short Form (PPI-SF), and the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-II (SRP-II). Using Samejima (1969)'s graded response model (GRM), the subscales were found to vary in their ability to measure the corresponding latent traits. The LSRP primary psychopathy factor is more precise in measuring the latent trait than the secondary psychopathy factor. The PAI ANT items show coherent psychometric properties, whereas the PPI-SF factors differ in their precision to measure the corresponding traits. The SRP-II factors are effective in discriminating among individuals with varying levels of the latent traits. Results suggest that multiple self-report measures should be used to tap the multidimensional psychopathy construct. However, there are concerns with respect to using negatively worded items to assess certain aspects of psychopathy. (PsycINFO Database Record

Sluggish cognitive tempo is associated with suicide risk in psychiatrically hospitalized children

BACKGROUND

Although identified as a significant public health concern, few studies have examined correlates of suicide risk in school-aged children. Recent studies show a relation between sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) symptoms and a range of adverse outcomes linked to suicidal ideation, including depression, emotion dysregulation, lowered self-esteem, and peer problems/social withdrawal, yet no study to date has examined SCT in relation to suicide risk.

METHODS

We tested the hypothesis that SCT would be associated with suicide risk in a sample of 95 psychiatrically hospitalized children (74% male; 62% black) between the ages of 8 and 12 (M = 10.01, SD = 1.50). Parents completed measures of their child's psychiatric symptoms, including SCT and depression, as well as a measure of their own psychopathology. Children completed measures assessing loneliness and depression. Both parents and children completed measures of suicide risk.

RESULTS

White children reported greater suicide risk than nonwhite children. After controlling for demographic characteristics, loneliness, parental psychopathology, and correlated psychiatric symptoms, including both parent- and child self-reported depressive symptoms, SCT remained uniquely associated with children's suicide risk. Results were consistent across both parent and child measures of suicide risk.

CONCLUSIONS

This multi-informant study provides strong preliminary support for an association between SCT symptoms and suicide risk in psychiatrically hospitalized children, above and beyond loneliness, depression, and demographic characteristics. Findings are discussed in the context of the interpersonal theory of suicide. Additional studies are needed to replicate and extend these findings, with a particular need for studies that examine the cognitive processes and daydreaming content of individuals displaying elevated SCT symptomatology.

Quality-of-life assessment in dementia: the use of DEMQOL and DEMQOL-Proxy total scores

PURPOSE

There is a need to determine whether health-related quality-of-life (HRQL) assessments in dementia capture what is important, to form a coherent basis for guiding research and clinical and policy decisions. This study investigated structural validity of HRQL assessments made using the DEMQOL system, with particular interest in studying domains that might be central to HRQL, and the external validity of these HRQL measurements.

METHODS

HRQL of people with dementia was evaluated by 868 self-reports (DEMQOL) and 909 proxy reports (DEMQOL-Proxy) at a community memory service. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA) were conducted using bifactor models to investigate domains that might be central to general HRQL. Reliability of the general and specific factors measured by the bifactor models was examined using omega (ω) and omega hierarchical (ω h) coefficients. Multiple-indicators multiple-causes models were used to explore the external validity of these HRQL measurements in terms of their associations with other clinical assessments.

RESULTS

Bifactor models showed adequate goodness of fit, supporting HRQL in dementia as a general construct that underlies a diverse range of health indicators. At the same time, additional factors were necessary to explain residual covariation of items within specific health domains identified from the literature. Based on these models, DEMQOL and DEMQOL-Proxy overall total scores showed excellent reliability (ω h > 0.8). After accounting for common variance due to a general factor, subscale scores were less reliable (ω h < 0.7) for informing on individual differences in specific HRQL domains. Depression was more strongly associated with general HRQL based on DEMQOL than on DEMQOL-Proxy (-0.55 vs -0.22). Cognitive impairment had no reliable association with general HRQL based on DEMQOL or DEMQOL-Proxy.

CONCLUSIONS

The tenability of a bifactor model of HRQL in dementia suggests that it is possible to retain theoretical focus on the assessment of a general phenomenon, while exploring variation in specific HRQL domains for insights on what may lie at the 'heart' of HRQL for people with dementia. These data suggest that DEMQOL and DEMQOL-Proxy total scores are likely to be accurate measures of individual differences in HRQL, but that subscale scores should not be used. No specific domain was solely responsible for general HRQL at dementia diagnosis. Better HRQL was moderately associated with less depressive symptoms, but this was less apparent based on informant reports. HRQL was not associated with severity of cognitive impairment.

Increasing the Sensitivity of Measures to Change

Little attention is paid in prevention research to the ability of measures to accurately assess change, termed "responsiveness" or "sensitivity to change." This paper reviews definitions and measures of responsiveness, and suggests five strategies for increasing sensitivity to change, with central focus on prevention research with small samples: (a) improving understandability and cultural validity, (b) assuring that the measure covers the full range of the latent construct being measured, (c) eliminating redundant items, (d) maximizing sensitivity of the device used to collect responses; and (e) asking directly about change. Examples of the application of each strategy are provided. The discussion focuses on using the issues as a checklist for improving measures and the implications of sensitivity to change for prevention research with small samples.

Cross-Cultural Validation of the Modified Practice Attitudes Scale: Initial Factor Analysis and a New Factor Model

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to create the Korean version of the Modified Practice Attitudes Scale (K-MPAS) to measure clinicians' attitudes toward evidence-based treatments (EBTs) in the Korean mental health system.

METHOD

Using 189 U.S. therapists and 283 members from the Korean mental health system, we examined the reliability and validity of the MPAS scores. We also conducted the first exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis on the MPAS and compared EBT attitudes across U.S. and Korean therapists.

RESULTS

Results revealed that the inclusion of both "reversed-worded" and "non-reversed-worded" items introduced significant method effects that compromised the integrity of the one-factor MPAS model. Problems with the one-factor structure were resolved by eliminating the "non-reversed-worded" items. Reliability and validity were adequate among both Korean and U.S. therapists. Korean therapists also reported significantly more negative attitudes toward EBTs on the MPAS than U.S. therapists.

CONCLUSIONS

The K-MPAS is the first questionnaire designed to measure Korean service providers' attitudes toward EBTs to help advance the dissemination of EBTs in Korea. The current study also demonstrated the negative impacts that can be introduced by incorporating oppositely worded items into a scale, particularly with respect to factor structure and detecting significant group differences.

The Loneliness Questionnaire: Establishing Measurement Invariance Across Ethnic Groups

A state of loneliness describes an individual's perception of having dissatisfying social connections to others. Though it is notable across the life span, it may have particularly deleterious effects in childhood and adolescence, leading to increased risk of emotional impairment. The current study evaluates a widely used test of loneliness, the Loneliness Questionnaire, for measurement invariance across ethnic groups in a large, representative sample of youth in the 2nd to 12th grades ( N = 12,344; 41% African American) in Mississippi. Analyses were conducted using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis following a published, sequential method to examine invariance in form, factor loadings, and item intercepts. Overall, our results indicated that the instrument was invariant across ethnicities, suggesting that youth with equivalent manifest scores can be discerned as having comparable levels of latent loneliness. The loneliness scores also corresponded significantly with depression and anxiety scores for most subsamples, with one exception. These findings are discussed in the context of previous results comparing levels of loneliness across ethnicities. Additionally, the broader context of the need to expand invariance studies in instrumentation work is highlighted.

[The development of the Five-item Loneliness Scale for Children]

The purpose of the present study was to develop a simplified scale to assess loneliness in children. Participants were 646 elementary school students (335 boys and 311 girls) from 4th to 6th grade and 24 homeroom teachers who identified lonely children within the participants of their classes. The'student participants completed the Five-item Loneliness Scale for Children (Five-LSC) and other scales measuring social skills, social competence, and withdrawal to confirm the validity of the Five-LSC. The results showed that the Five-LSC was both reliable and valid. In addition, there were no grade or sex differences in loneliness. Future research using the Five-LSC was discussed.

'Lonesome Town'? Is Loneliness Associated with the Residential Environment, including Housing and Neighbourhood Factors?

This article considers whether feelings of loneliness are associated with aspects of the home and neighbourhood of residence. Multinominal logistic regression models were used to explore associations between residential environment and loneliness in 4,000 residents across deprived areas of Glasgow. People who rated their neighbourhood environment of higher quality, and who used more local amenities, were less likely to report loneliness. Respondents who knew more people within the local area were less likely to report loneliness. Those who reported more antisocial behaviour problems, who had a weak perception of collective efficacy, and who felt unsafe walking alone at night-time were more likely to report loneliness. Length of residence and dwelling type were not associated with reported loneliness. The findings indicate the potential importance of several dimensions of the neighbourhood physical, service and social environment, including aspects of both quality and trust, in protecting against or reducing loneliness in deprived areas.