Evaluating the psychometric properties of the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) in Iranian earthquake survivors

ABSTRACT

Positive mental health is a significant dimension of human health that has an important role in promoting well-being. Research in well-being needs reliable and valid scales that measure all aspects of well-being and are available in multiple languages. This study aimed to examine the reliability and validity of the Persian translation of the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF), a well-validated self-report scale assessing emotional, psychological, and social well-being. In the present study, the Persian translation of the MHC-SF was administered to 600 Iranian adults who survived a series of earthquakes in 2012. Internal consistency of the overall MHC–SF scale was excellent (0.91) and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the three-factor structure originally proposed, with these three factors accounting for about 68 percent of variance of the variance. Results suggest that the Persian translation of the MHC-SF has strong psychometric properties and is likely of utility to researchers and practitioners in Iran.

KEYWORDS:

• Factor analysis
• positive mental health
• psychometrics
• reliability
• validity