Development of Comprehensive Mental Health Assessment Questionnaire for soldiers

Abstract

Objective To develop a Comprehensive Mental Health Assessment (CMHA) questionnaire for soldiers and test its reliability and validity. Methods With the Military Demand-Resource model as the theoretical conception, and psychological measurement, statistical analysis, expert evaluation, collective discussion as the research method, a pre-questionnaire containing 98 items was revised based on the prediction of 935 soldiers. Another 1 689 soldiers were selected from basic army units to test the reliability and validity of the questionnaire using cluster sampling. Results The formal CMHA questionnaire contained 94 items and 12 factors (adaptability, positive coping, depression, negative emotion, positive emotion, work involvement, loneliness, friendship, family satisfaction, institutional trust, interpersonal trust and life meaning). The internal consistency coefficient of the total questionnaire was 0.978. The test-retest reliability coefficient was 0.756 (P < 0.01). Confirmatory factor analysis supported the 12-factor model, and fitted well with the measured data. Conclusion Our prepared CMHA questionnaire has good reliability and validity and is an effective tool to measure soldiers' multidimensional mental health.

Keywords

• comprehensive mental health assessment for soldiers
• reliability
• validity