Abstract
Positive mental health is fundamental to individuals’ overall well-being, and a reliable assessment of well-being has been of concern to many researchers over the past decade. These efforts have engendered a plethora of well-being rating scales, of which the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) is a self-assessment scale measuring positive human mental functioning. In this study, we examine the inherent structure of the Korean version of the MHC-SF by testing several competing models identified in the literature. Data were collected from a sample of 252 preschool teachers working in childcare centers in South Korea. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to determine the structure of the MHC-SF. McDonald’s omega coefficients were used to evaluate reliability. Our results for CFA revealed that a bifactor model with a general well-being factor and three specific factors comprising the emotional, social, and psychological dimensions produced the best fit with the data. Additionally, the MHC-SF evinced excellent internal consistency. Our findings suggest that the scores of the three specific factors should not be used as the first choice when using the MHC-SF, and the MHC-SF appears to be a measure that is best seen as a single unitary construct of general well-being.
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Data availablity
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Due to privacy and ethical concerns, supporting data cannot be made openly available.
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This research was supported by Woosong University (Grant No. WLB 1928-2332-01).
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The Institutional Review Board at Woosong University in Korea (Protocol Code: 1041549-201006-SB-103) provided the study’s ethical approval.
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Lee, B., Kim, Y.E. A comparison of factor structure models for the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) among preschool teachers in South Korea. Curr Psychol 43, 4678–4687 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04683-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04683-1