Evidence of factorial validity and accuracy of attitudes in mental health scale

Abstract This study gathered evidence of factorial validity and internal consistency of the Attitudes in Mental Health Scale. Two studies were performed. A total of 404 college students, including women (69.6%) with a mean age of 24 years (Standard Deviation = 5.67), participated in Study 1. A total of 396 college students, including females (69.9%) with a mean age of 23 years (Standard Deviation = 5.41), participated in Study 2. In the first study, an exploratory factorial analysis indicated the existence of two factors (biomedical paradigm, α = 0.71; psychosocial paradigm, α = 0.66) with a total of 15 items. In the second study, a confirmatory factorial analysis indicated that the bifactorial model that was proposed for the scale was adequate: χ²/df = 2.41, GFI = 0.93 and RMSEA = 0.06, 90%IC [0.05 - 0.07]. The results concluded that this measure can be adequately applied in studies in the proposed measurement context