Mental Health of Iranian College Students in a Nationally Representative Sample of over 74,500 Individuals: Scale Development and Standardization

Abstract

This study sought to develop the College Mental Health Scale (CMHS) as a screening instrument among Iranian college students. In total, the nationally representative sample (N = 74,571) was selected to match Iranian college student population throughout the country. In the first study, a conceptual framework was developed and a pool of items based on the most prevalent mental disorders in Iranian college students was devised. In the second study, psychometric properties of CMHS was examined (n = 600). The third study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase (n = 2,750), explanatory factor analysis was used for reaching a better factor structure and in the second phase (n = 2,750) the invariability of factor structure and correlation of CMHS with related measure was examined. The result revealed a 56-item measurement scale consisting of seven dimensions: anxiety, depression, social anxiety, sleep disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, positive affect, and life satisfaction. In the fourth study (n = 68,471), male and female norms were developed. The CMHS has adequate reliability and validity and can be used for assessment of college students' mental health problems in Iran.

A national school-based screening program for mental health problems among children aged 6 to 12 years in Iran: scale development and psychometric evaluation

“…Such differences, if not taken into account, may affect the reliability and validity of instruments and produce faulty results (Mahmood et al, 2015). Although psychometric assessment of culture-specific tools is an active line of research in Iran (e.g., Akbari Zardkhaneh et al, 2021;Toosi et al, 2017), such measures for assessment of children's mental health are widely missing. In order to fill the dearth of large-scale research on Iranian children's mental health, developing a culturally appropriate scale which is based on Iranian culture and mental disorders' epidemiological prevalence rate is necessary, but lacking in the literature.…”