title: Assessing modern health worries: dimensionality and factorial invariance across age and sex of the Modern Health Worries Scale in a general population sample.
abstract: Previous work suggests a four-factor structure of the Modern Health Worries Scale. This study is the first to investigate its dimensionality and factorial invariance across age and sex in a representative population sample (N = 2524) using confirmatory factor analysis. The proposed four-factor model failed to achieve good model fit. Model fit was optimized by allowing correlating error terms resulting in acceptable model fit. Multi-group analysis revealed invariance across age and sex. Our study proved the proposed four-factor structure across age and sex. Consequently, the Modern Health Worries Scale can be applied in general population surveys using subscale scores.
authors.affiliation: University of Leipzig, Germany Lena.Spangenberg@medizin.uni-leipzig.de.
authors.forename: Lena
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Spangenberg
authors.affiliation: University of Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zenger
authors.affiliation: Philipps University of Marburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Winfried
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Rief
authors.affiliation: University of Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Elmar
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Brähler
authors.affiliation: University of Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Heide
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Glaesmer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001294:Attitude to Health; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: assessment; dimensionality; factor structure; general population; modern health worries