Screening tool for mental health problems during COVID-19 pandemic: psychometrics and associations with sex, grieving, contagion, and seeking psychological care

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dc.contributor.affiliationFacultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
dc.contributor.emailsmchaine@gmail.com (Silvia Morales Chainé) grangel2009@gmail.com (María Gudelia Rangel Gómez)
dc.creatorMorales Chainé, Silviaes_ES
dc.creatorRobles García, Rebecaes_ES
dc.creatorLópez Montoya, Alejandraes_ES
dc.creatorBosch Maldonado, Alejandroes_ES
dc.creatorBeristain Aguirre, Ana Giselaes_ES
dc.creatorTreviño Santa Cruz, Claudia Lydiaes_ES
dc.creatorPalafox Palafox, Germánes_ES
dc.creatorLira Chávez, Isaura Angélicaes_ES
dc.creatorBarragán Torres, Lydiaes_ES
dc.creatorRangel Gómez, María Gudeliaes_ES
dc.date2022
dc.date.accessioned2024-10-30T18:20:39Z
dc.date.accessioned2026-03-27T15:30:29Z
dc.date.available2024-10-30T18:20:39Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.date.published2022
dc.descriptionBackground: The COVID-19 pandemic has created a public mental health crisis. Brief, valid electronic tools are required to evaluate mental health status, identify specific risk factors, and offer treatment when needed. Objective: To determine the construct validity, reliability, and measurement invariance of a brief screening tool for mental health symptoms by sex, loss of loved ones, personal COVID-19 status, and psychological care-seeking during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the aim involved establishing a predictive pattern between the mental health variables. Method: A total sample of 27,320 Mexican participants, with a mean age of 32 years (SD = 12.24, range = 18-80), 67% women (n = 18,308), 23.10% with a loss of loved ones (n = 6,308), 18.3% with COVID-19 status (n = 5,005), and 18.40% seeking psychological care (n = 5,026), completed a questionnaire through a WebApp, containing socio-demographic data (sex, loss of loved ones, COVID-19 status, and psychological care-seeking) and the dimensions from the Posttraumatic Checklist, Depression-Generalized Anxiety Questionnaires, and Health Anxiety-Somatization scales. We used the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA: through maximum likelihood to continuous variable data, as an estimation method), the invariance measurement, and the structural equational modeling (SEM) to provide evidence of the construct validity of the scale and the valid path between variables. We analyzed the measurement invariance for each dimension by comparison groups to examine the extent to which the items showed comparable psychometric properties. Findings: The tool included eight dimensions: four posttraumatic stress symptoms -intrusion, avoidance, hyperactivation, and numbing, as well as depression, generalized anxiety, health anxiety, and somatization The tool's multidimensionality, was confirmed through the CFA and SEM. The participants' characteristics made it possible to describe the measurement invariance of scales because of the participants' attributes. Additionally, our findings indicated that women reported high generalized anxiety, hyperactivation, and depression. Those who lost loved ones reported elevated levels of intrusion and health anxiety symptoms. Participants who reported having COVID-19 presented with high levels of generalized anxiety symptoms. Those who sought psychological care reported high levels of generalized anxiety, intrusion, hyperactivation, and health anxiety symptoms. Our findings also show that intrusion was predicted by the avoidance dimension, while health anxiety was predicted by the intrusion dimension. Generalized anxiety was predicted by the health anxiety and hyperactivation dimensions, and hyperactivation was predicted by the depression one. Depression and somatization were predicted by the health anxiety dimension. Last, numbing was predicted by the depression and avoidance dimensions. Discussion and outlook: Our findings indicate that it was possible to validate the factor structure of posttraumatic stress symptoms and their relationship with depression, anxiety, and somatization, describing the specific bias as a function of sociodemographic COVID-19-related variables. We also describe the predictive pattern between the mental health variables. These mental health problems were identified in the community and primary health care scenarios through the CFA and the SEM, considering the PCL, depression, generalized anxiety, health anxiety, and somatization scales adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, future studies should describe the diagnosis of mental health disorders, assessing the cut-off points in the tool to discriminate between the presence and absence of conditions and mental health cut-off points. Community and primary care screening will lead to effective early interventions to reduce the mental health risks associated with the current pandemic. Limitations: Future studies should follow up on the results of this study and assess consistency with diagnoses of mental health disorders and evaluate the effect of remote psychological help. Moreover, in the future, researchers should monitor the process and the time that has elapsed between the occurrence of traumatic events and the development of posttraumatic stress and other mental health risks through brief electronic measurement tools such as those used in this study.es_ES
dc.formatPDFes_ES
dc.identifierJC40DIEP22es_ES
dc.identifier.doi10.3389/fpsyg.2022.882573
dc.identifier.eissn1664-1078
dc.identifier.organizacionInstituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Ramón dela Fuente Muñiz
dc.identifier.placeSuiza
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.882573
dc.identifier.urihttps://repositorio.inprf.gob.mx/handle/123456789/8088
dc.language.isoenges_ES
dc.publisherFrontiers Research Foundationes_ES
dc.relation13:882573
dc.relation.jnabreviadoFRONT PSYCHOL
dc.relation.journalFrontiers in Psychology
dc.rightsAcceso Cerradoes_ES
dc.subject.kwStress
dc.subject.kwMental health symptoms
dc.subject.kwCFA
dc.subject.kwMeasurement invariance
dc.subject.kwCOVID-19
dc.titleScreening tool for mental health problems during COVID-19 pandemic: psychometrics and associations with sex, grieving, contagion, and seeking psychological carees_ES
dc.typeArtículoes_ES

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