The factor structure of the mental health continuum-short form (MHC-SF) in Serbia: an evaluation using exploratory structural equation modeling.

BACKGROUND: The Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) is a brief measure to assess emotional, social, and psychological well-being.

AIMS: We examined the factor structure of the MHC-SF in Serbia. A secondary goal was to examine measurement invariance and latent mean differences across gender.

METHOD: The methods of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM) were used to investigate the factor structure of the scale in a large sample (N = 1883). We compared 1-, 2-, and 3-factor models of mental well-being.

RESULTS: The results supported the superiority of the 3-factor model of well-being over the alternatives. ESEM yielded better fit with the data and considerably smaller factor correlations than did CFA. ESEM also uncovered a number of cross-loadings in the MHC-SF. Full measurement invariance was established across gender, yet no significant gender differences were identified in the latent means.

CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that emotional, social, and psychological well-being represents correlated yet distinct factors in Serbia. The results also suggest that ESEM is a more appropriate method than CFA for examining the factor structure of mental well-being. The contributions of ESEM to current debates surrounding the distinction between hedonic and eudaimonic well-being are discussed.