The Chinese Mental Health Value Scale: Measuring Chinese college students’ cultural values, values of mental health, and subjective well-being

Abstract

Mental health is a value laden phenomenon. It may be perceived and experienced differently by people from different cultural backgrounds or having different cultural values. Understanding cultural specific mental health values is necessary for any helping professions aiming at improving mental health services. The current study developed and validated a Chinese Mental Health Value Scale (CMHVS) in hope of aiding the effort to provide effective counseling to Chinese college students in China and around the world. The scale was developed by following DeVellis (2011) method step by step. Literature review, focus groups and a brief survey were used to generate a preliminary item pool. A pilot study was conducted to evaluate and improve prospective items. Using Qualtrics, the final data collection yielded a sample of 1058 Chinese college students. For statistical purposes, the sample was randomly split into two subsamples for EFA and CFA respectively. The analysis resulted in a 35-item, seven-factor model of Chinese mental health values for college students with strong psychometric quality. The seven factors are Expected Self, Relating to Others, Life Principle, Family, Purpose and Meaning, Achievement and Communication Style. To test the validity of the scale, four reference measures were used to examine its convergent validity. It was found that CMHVS was positively related with the Cultural Orientation Scale (Triandis & Gelfland, 1998), Asian Values Scale (AVS; Kim, Atkinson & Yang, 1999), and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985). Only factor 1 (Expected Self) was negatively related to Depression and Somatization subscales of the Brief Symptom Inventory-18 (BSI-18; Derogatis, 2000). Limitations and implications to future research were discussed.