Psychometric Characteristics of the Korean Mental Health Continuum–Short Form in an Adolescent Sample

Abstract

There have been few research studies to examine the positive mental health of Asian adolescents. The aim here is to examine the factorial structure, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent/discriminant validity of a Korean version of the Mental Health Continuum–short form (K-MHC-SF), a newly developed self-report scale for positive mental health assessment, in a sample of South Korean adolescents. The Korean sample comprised 547 high school students (57% were female), ranging in age from 14 to 17 years (mean age = 16.08 years, SD = 0.34). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the K-MHC-SF replicated the three-factor structure of emotional, psychological, and social well-being found in earlier studies. Another confirmatory factor analysis supported the correlated two-factor model of mental health and mental disorder. The internal consistency of the overall K-MHC-SF was .91. The total score on the K-MHC-SF significantly correlated with a measure of life satisfaction (ρ = .58) and a measure of self-esteem (ρ = .57). In addition, the attempt at categorical classification revealed that 11.7% were in the category of positive mental health, characterized as flourishing, and 13.0% were in the category of absence of positive mental health, described as languishing. The results of the present study suggest that the K-MHC-SF is a psychometrically sound instrument for measuring the three lower-order dimensions of subjective well-being.

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