Gender-Based Differential Item Function for the Positive and Negative Semantic Dimensions of the Relationship Satisfaction Scale with Item Response Theory.

Relationship satisfaction is at the core of a robust social life and is essential to mental health. The positive and negative semantic dimensions of the relationship satisfaction (PN-SMD) scale is considered in the field of relationship studies to be a reliable tool for assessing the quality of a person's interpersonal relationships. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the PN-SMD scale by conducting multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) and differential item functioning (DIF) analyses, both of which are emerging assessment methods that focus on individual items. We recruited 511 Chinese undergraduate students for this study. Construct validity, internal consistency, and concurrent validity were assessed, and MIRT and DIF analyses were conducted. Five of the 14 items were found to have gender-based DIF traits, affecting the scale's construct validity. A revised nine-item scale (DIF items excluded) had a significantly better model fit and demonstrated comparable concurrent validity to the original scale. The implications of our results and future research directions are discussed.

Actor-partner effects of wellbeing, hope and self-esteem on depression in stroke survivor-caregiver dyads: A randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Stroke is a disabling, long-term condition that challenges the mental and physical health of stroke-survivors concurrently with their primary family-caregivers (dyad). However, there has been a lack of emphasis on this dyadic need. Thus, this study aims to investigate the impacts of two interventions on hope, self-esteem and hedonic wellbeing on depression among the stroke-survivor-caregiver dyad. METHODS: This randomized-controlled-trial applied the actor-partner interdependence model to 100 randomly-selected dyads (N = 200) of stroke-survivors, mean (SD) age was 73.63(7.22) and family-caregivers, mean (SD) age was 62.49(14.44) years, recruited from Hong Kong hospitals and rehabilitation centres. The intervention was eight-weekly two-hour narrative therapy group sessions (n = 54 dyads), compared with the current model of psychoeducational group to each dyad as needed. Outcomes were collected via questionnaires and interviews, at four time-points: baseline (T1), during-intervention (T2) (1-month), immediately post-intervention (T3) (2-months) and follow-up (T4) (6-months). RESULTS: The results demonstrated that there are actor effects on stroke-survivors (ß = -0.353, p < 0.05) and caregivers (ß = -0.383, p < 0.05), where higher levels of hedonic wellbeing were associated with fewer depressive symptoms. Partner effects were observed as caregivers' depressive symptoms were possessing a significant negative relationship with stroke survivors' wellbeing (ß = -0.387, p < 0.05). Those stroke survivors in the intervention group had a significantly higher level of self-esteem associated with lower levels of depression (ß = -0.314, p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Improving hope, self-esteem and wellbeing through narrative therapy significantly mediates depressive symptoms, strengthening the dyadic support of stroke survivors and family caregivers.

Measurement of burnout during the prolonged pandemic in the Chinese zero-COVID context: COVID-19 burnout views scale.

Burnout is an important public health issue at times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Current measures which focus on work-based burnout have limitations in length and/or relevance. When stepping into the post-pandemic as a new Norm Era, the burnout scale for the general population is urgently needed to fill the gap. This study aimed to develop a COVID-19 Burnout Views Scale (COVID-19 BVS) to measure burnout views of the general public in a Chinese context and examine its psychometric properties. A multiphase approach including literature review, expert consultation, and pilot testing was adopted in developing the scale. The scale was administered to a sample of 1,078 of the general public in Hong Kong with an average age of 34.45 years (SD = 12.47). Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses suggested a 5-item unidimensional model of COVID-19 BVS. The CFA results indicated that the COVID-19 BVS had a good model fit, as χ2 (10.054)/5 = 2.01, SRMR = 0.010, CFI = 0.998, RMSEA = 0.031. Five items were maintained in EFA with high internal consistency in terms of Cronbach's α of 0.845 and McDonald's ω coefficient of 0.87, and the corrected item-to-total correlations of 0.512 to 0.789 are way above the acceptable range. The KMO values of 0.841 and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity (p < 0.01) verified the normal distribution of the EFA and the adequacy of the EFA sampling. The analyses suggest that the COVID-19 BVS is a promising tool for assessing burnout views on the impacts of the epidemic on the Chinese general populations.

Validity and Psychometric Evaluation of the Chinese Version of the 5-Item WHO Well-Being Index.

Aims: This article evaluates the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the 5-item WHO Well-Being Index (WHO-5) in mainland China. Methods: Two cross-sectional studies with 1,414 participants from a university in China were conducted. The Chinese version of the WHO-5 was assessed to determine its internal consistency, concurrent validity, factorial validity, and construct validity. Results: The results indicate that the WHO-5 is unidimensional and has good internal consistency, with Cronbach's a = 0.85 and 0.81 in Study 1 (n = 903) and Study 2 (n = 511), respectively. The findings also demonstrate that the WHO-5 has good concurrent validity with other well-established measures of wellbeing, self-efficacy, self-esteem, and mental wellbeing. The results of confirmatory factor analysis also suggest that the scale has a good model fit. Conclusions: This study provides empirical data demonstrating that the Chinese version of the WHO-5 has good psychometric properties. The scale can be a useful measure in epistemological studies and clinical research related to wellbeing in Chinese populations.

Narrative Group Intervention to Rediscover Life Wisdom Among Hong Kong Chinese Older Adults: A Single-Blind Randomized Waitlist-Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: We developed a new group practice using strength- and meaning-based narrative therapy (NT) for older Chinese living in Hong Kong (HK), to enhance their life wisdom. This paper reports on the intervention and its short- and longer-term effectiveness. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A randomized waitlist-controlled trial was conducted. A total of 157 older adults were randomly recruited, of whom 75 were randomly assigned to the intervention group which received four 2-hr biweekly NT sessions using the "Tree of Life" metaphor. The others were placed on a waitlist. Perceived wisdom was assessed using the Brief Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale. Assessment occurred at baseline (T0), end of treatment (T1), and 4 (T2) and 8 months later (T3). Overtime effects of NT on wisdom scores were assessed using latent growth curve models with time-invariant covariates for impact. RESULTS: The intervention (NT) group showed significant, sustainable overtime within-group improvement in perceived wisdom. Furthermore, when compared to the control group, the NT group showed significant immediate improvements in perceived wisdom [F(2.726, p = .041)], which were maintained at all follow-up points. This effect remained after controlling for age, gender, and educational level (T ML(11) = 17.306, p = .098, root mean square error of approximation = 0.079, comparative fit index = 0.960). No adverse reaction was recorded. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: NT underpinned by a ToL methodology offers a new theory to understand, promote, and appreciate perceived wisdom in older Chinese living in HK. It contributes to psychotherapy and professional social work practice for older Chinese.

Social Physique Anxiety Scale: Psychometric Evaluation and Development of a Chinese Adaptation.

The Social Physique Anxiety Scale (SPAS) is a popular measure of individual anxiety related to body image. This study assessed the psychometric properties of the 12-, 9-, 8- and 7-item versions of the SPAS. Two cross-sectional studies recruited 466 Chinese university students. Study 1 (n = 273) evaluated the construct validity and internal consistency of the SPAS. Study 2 (n = 193) further assessed the construct validity, factorial validity, internal consistency, convergent validity and divergent validity of the SPAS. The results indicated that none of the existing SPAS versions possess good psychometric properties suitable for the Chinese student population. In short, a new 7-item version of the SPAS that is more suitable for measuring social physique anxiety among Chinese university students. The implications of our results and future research directions are discussed.

Problematic Internet Usage and Self-Esteem in Chinese Undergraduate Students: The Mediation Effects of Individual Affect and Relationship Satisfaction.

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to examine the mediating effects of individual affect and relationship satisfaction on the relationship between self-esteem and Problematic Internet Use (PIU). Affect was measured using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), relationship satisfaction was assessed using a positive and negative semantic dimension scale, self-esteem was measured using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and PIU was measured using the Problematic Internet Use scale with a sample of 507 Chinese university students (Mage = 20.41 years, SD = 2.49). The relationships between the variables were tested using structural equation modelling with a multiple mediation model. The results revealed that negative affect and the negative semantic dimensions of relationship satisfaction mediated the relationship between self-esteem and PIU. The implications of the results and the study's theoretical contributions are discussed.

Development of the Cybercrime Rapid Identification Tool for Adolescents.

Two studies were conducted to support the development of an eight-item Cybercrime Rapid Identification Tool (CRIT) and evaluate the psychometric properties of the proposed scale on samples of secondary school and university students. The CRIT was developed and evaluated in two cross-sectional studies with 2044 respondents from Hong Kong and China. Study 1 recruited 1533 secondary school students from Hong Kong with a mean age of 14.91 (SD = 1.77) years, and Study 2 recruited 511 university students from mainland China with a mean age of 20.41 (SD = 2.49) years. A stepwise confirmatory factor analytical approach was taken with further verification by exploratory factor analysis based on different samples. Factorial validity was further verified using confirmatory factor analysis. The analyses supported an eight-item scale with a two-factor structure. The eight-item CRIT was found to possess good internal consistency and concurrent validity. The studies offer promising support for the CRIT. It has the potential to advance epistemological methods and clinical research related to cybercrime prevention.

Development and Evaluation of the Psychometric Properties of a Brief Wisdom Development Scale.

This study was to develop an 18-item Brief Wisdom Development Scale, based on the original 66-item Wisdom Development Scale, and evaluate the psychometric properties of the proposed scale using a sample of older adults. This longitudinal study recruited 153 community-dwelling adults (mean = 72.55 years old; SD = 8.47) from older adult service centres. Using a repeated measures design, the study obtained four waves of data from the participants over 12 months. The Brief Wisdom Development Scale (BWDS) was developed based on the Stepwise Confirmatory Factor Analytical approach (SCOFA), with further verification of its factorial validity using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results suggest that the BWDS comprising 18 items with a six-factor structure is comparable with its full version and possesses good psychometric properties in internal consistency, concurrent validity, and factorial validity. The BWDS provides an efficient, reliable, and valid construct to measure wisdom. The implications for research development are discussed here.

Validity of the Brief Resilience Scale and Brief Resilient Coping Scale in a Chinese Sample.

This study presents a cross-cultural examination of the psychometric properties of two commonly used brief self-report resilience scales, the 6-item Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) and the 4-item Brief Resilient Coping Scale (BRCS). Five hundred and eleven Chinese university undergraduate students were recruited for this cross-sectional research. Various psychometric evaluation tools were used to evaluate the internal consistency, criterion validity, factorial validity and construct validity of these resilience scales. The results showed that both scales had good criterion validity, with well-established measures of well-being, optimism, self-esteem, self-efficacy and mental health, as suggested in the resilience literature. The BRS (a = 0.71) showed better internal consistency than the BRCS (a = 0.59). The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) results also indicated that the BRS, with a two-factor structure, had better construct validity than the BRCS. The CFA results for the BRS met all of the criteria for a good model fit. The BRS was found to have better psychometric properties than the BRCS in the Chinese context. The findings will help researchers to select an appropriate resilience measure when conducting epistemological surveys of Chinese university students or the Chinese diaspora in other contexts.

Development and validation of a brief self-assessed wisdom scale.

BACKGROUND: This longitudinal study aimed to develop a nine-item Brief Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale (BSAWS) derived from the original 40-item Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale (SAWS). METHODS: The psychometric properties of the shortened scale were evaluated based on a sample of 157 older adults. The factor structure and dimensionality of the original SAWS were examined using confirmatory factor analysis. Subsequent explorative factor analysis of the BSAWS supported the construct validity of the shortened scale. RESULTS: The internal consistency, convergent validity and construct validity of the shortened scale were also evaluated and the results indicated that the BSAWS possesses good psychometric properties and is comparable with the full version. CONCLUSIONS: This scale refinement may help researchers and practitioners conduct epistemological surveys or clinical research related to wisdom.

Development and evaluation of the psychometric properties of a brief parenting scale (PS-7) for the parents of adolescents.

This study aimed to develop a seven-item brief parenting scale (PS-7) based on the original parenting scale (PS) and various other shortened versions and with a better factor structure for the parents of adolescents. The scale was tested with a sample of 3,777 parents (2,205 mothers and 1,572 fathers). Confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate the dimensionality of the different versions of the PS. Only the PS-7 with a two-factor structure, i.e., laxness (three items) and overreactivity (four items), showed a good model fit based on a representative sample of parents of junior secondary school students. Overall, the results suggest that PS-7 is comparable to the original PS and possesses good psychometric properties in terms of internal consistency, factorial validity, construct validity, criterion validity and discriminant validity. The abbreviated parenting scale also provides a reliable and cost-effective method for assessing parental practices for treatment and assessing treatment outcomes.

Learning Graph Embedding With Adversarial Training Methods.

Graph embedding aims to transfer a graph into vectors to facilitate subsequent graph-analytics tasks like link prediction and graph clustering. Most approaches on graph embedding focus on preserving the graph structure or minimizing the reconstruction errors for graph data. They have mostly overlooked the embedding distribution of the latent codes, which unfortunately may lead to inferior representation in many cases. In this article, we present a novel adversarially regularized framework for graph embedding. By employing the graph convolutional network as an encoder, our framework embeds the topological information and node content into a vector representation, from which a graph decoder is further built to reconstruct the input graph. The adversarial training principle is applied to enforce our latent codes to match a prior Gaussian or uniform distribution. Based on this framework, we derive two variants of the adversarial models, the adversarially regularized graph autoencoder (ARGA) and its variational version, and adversarially regularized variational graph autoencoder (ARVGA), to learn the graph embedding effectively. We also exploit other potential variations of ARGA and ARVGA to get a deeper understanding of our designs. Experimental results that compared 12 algorithms for link prediction and 20 algorithms for graph clustering validate our solutions.

Cross-cultural validation of the Social Media Disorder scale.

BACKGROUND: With the popularity of social networking sites, there is an urgency to devise instruments to evaluate social media addiction in different cultural context. This paper evaluates the psychometric properties and validation of the Social Media Disorder (SMD) scale in People's Republic of China. METHODS: A total of 903 Chinese university students were recruited to participate in this cross-sectional study. The internal consistency, criterion validity and construct validity of the SMD scale were examined. RESULTS: The results suggested that the 9-item SMD scale had good psychometric properties. Its internal consistency was good, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.753. The results showed weak and moderate correlations with other validation constructs, such as self-efficacy and other disorder symptoms suggested in the original scale. The Chinese version of SMD demonstrated a good model fit for a two-factor structure in confirmatory factor analysis, with χ2 (44.085)/26=1.700, SRMR=0.059, CFI=0.995, TLI=0.993 and RMSEA=0.028. CONCLUSION: The SMD scale is suitable for researchers and practitioners to measure problematic usage of social media in a different context, especially on the Chinese population.

Psychometric evaluation of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) with Chinese University Students.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to assess the validity of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) and the SWEMWBS, the shortened version of the WEMWBS, and conduct a preliminary evaluation of the metric properties of these scales by using a sample of university students in mainland China. METHODS: Nine-hundred and three students from a Chinese university participated in the cross-sectional study. The internal consistency, convergent validity, factorial validity and construct validity of the scales were examined. RESULTS: The Chinese versions of the WEMWBS and SWEMWBS showed high internal consistency, with Cronbach's alpha values of 0.930 and 0.884, respectively. The results of the exploratory factor analysis suggested that the 14-item WEMWBS and 7-item SWEMWBS were suitable for a single scale. The WEMWBS and SWEMWBS also showed significant moderate to strong correlations with the other major subjective hedonic and eudemonic scales. Both scales showed good model fit in the confirmatory factor analysis, after reorganising several types of error covariance between the items. However, some items in WEMWBS recorded low validity in the evaluation of internal consistency, convergent validity and factorial validity. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that the SWEMWBS had high validity, internal consistency and psychometric properties when applied to the sample of Chinese students. Further studies should apply this promising scale to samples of other Chinese populations.

Evaluating the Dimensionality and Psychometric Properties of the Brief Self-Control Scale Amongst Chinese University Students.

The aim of this study was to assess the dimensionality and psychometric properties of the Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS) using a sample of university students in mainland China. Nine hundred and three students from a Chinese university participated in this study. The internal consistency, criterion validity, factorial validity and construct validity of the scale were examined. The Chinese versions of the BSCS demonstrated good internal consistency with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.81. The BSCS also showed significant moderate correlations with other construct-related scales. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) suggested that only a modified 11-item BSCS with a four-factor structure was a good model fit in the sample of Chinese university students, as χ2 (106.626)/37 = 2.88, SRMR = 0.036, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.992, Tucker-Lewis fit index (TLI) = 0.989, RMSEA = 0.046. The implications for research and theoretical development are discussed.