Measuring well-being and mental health: The mental health test

Abstract

Theoretical background: Beyond that mental health is related to biological, psychological, social, and spiritual well-being, it is a capacity to maintain and experience the positive conditions with effective coping, savoring, resilience and dynamic self-regulation skills. One of the most important responsibility of positive psychology is to construct scales measuring mental health. Aim: the purpose of this study is to present the psychometric characteristics of the new version of the Mental Health Test (MHT) based on five pillars. Method: Two online cross-sectional studies with self-report questionnaires. Study I: 1540 persons (391 men, 1149 women; mean age 52.0 years, SD = 11.3 years) filled in MHT, PERMA Profiler, Global Health, Diener's Flourishing Scale, Shortened Savoring and Shortened Psychological Immune Competence questionnaires along with questions about physical and psychological well-being and demographic data. Study II: 1083 persons (233 men, 847 women; mean age 33.9 years, SD = 12.2 years) filled in MHT, Aspiration Index, Shortened Beck Depression Inventory, WHO Well-Being Scale, Satisfaction with Life Scale, Purpose in Life Test, and Shortened Young Maladaptive Schema Questionnaire, along with questions about demographic data, religiosity, physical and mental health. Results: In Study I exploratory factor analysis identified the five-factor structure of MHT with 17 items, having also good fit measures in confirmative factor analysis. In Study II the five-factor model of the five subscales yielded excellent fit measures in confirmatory factor analysis (RMSEA =.051, pClose =.408, CFI =.950, TLI =.936). In both studies, Cronbach's α values of the five subscales (all above 0.70) indicated a high level of internal consistency. The discriminant validity is proven by the fact that each subscale had a minimum 44% part not covered by the set of other subscales. The content validity of the subscales was confirmed by ten tests about mental health, some special questions and socio-demographic indicators. Subscale of well-being showed a definite positive correlation with financial background. Creative and executing efficiency correlated with flow and education. We found also a positive correlation of self-regulation and resilience subscales with age, and women showed a higher level of savoring than men at all age levels. Conclusion: MHT can be considered a reliable and valid measurement tool for well-being, savoring, creative and executing efficiency, self-regulation and resilience dimensions of mental health.