Compilation of Self-Image Scale for Military Personnel and relationship of self-image with mental health

Abstract

Objective To develop a Self-Image Scale for Military Personnel, and to explore the relationship of self-image and mental health status. Methods Questionnaires and network crawling were used to collect adjectives describing soldiers. After word frequency cleaning, word meaning cleaning and synonym combination, an initial scale was formed. Then 2 756 soldiers were stratified from the units of army, navy, air force and rocket force and then surveyed with the initial scale. SPSS26.0 was used for item analysis, exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis and Pearson correlation analysis. AMOS21.0 was used for confirmatory factor analysis. Results Exploratory factor analysis showed that the scale had 2 dimensions, military ability and military moral character. There were 12 questions in total, with a total variance explanation rate of 77.227%. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that RMSEA and NNFI were 0.075 and 0.968, respectively. The Cronbach'α coefficients of the total scale and each dimension were 0.951, 0.942 and 0.936, and the retest reliability was 0.807, 0.791 and 0.794, respectively. There was a negative correlation between self-image and mental health status (r=-0.243, P < 0.01). Conclusion Our prepared Self-Image Scale for Military Personnel has good reliability and validity, and can be used as a psychological measurement tool. Self-image level of soldiersis an important factor in the maintenance and promotion of mental health.

Keywords

• self-image scale for military personnel
• validity
• reliability
• mental health