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Quantifying the strength of general factors in psychopathology: A comparison of CFA with maximum likelihood estimation, BSEM and ESEM/EFA bi-factor approaches


Murray, A L; Booth, T; Eisner, Manuel; Obsuth, I; Ribeaud, D (2019). Quantifying the strength of general factors in psychopathology: A comparison of CFA with maximum likelihood estimation, BSEM and ESEM/EFA bi-factor approaches. Journal of Personality Assessment, 101(6):631-643.

Abstract

Whether or not importance should be placed on an all-encompassing general factor of psychopathology (or p factor) in classifying, researching, diagnosing, and treating psychiatric disorders depends (among other issues) on the extent to which comorbidity is symptom-general rather than staying largely within the confines of narrower transdiagnostic factors such as internalizing and externalizing. In this study, we compared three methods of estimating p factor strength. We compared omega hierarchical and explained common variance calculated from confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) bifactor models with maximum likelihood (ML) estimation, from exploratory structural equation modeling/exploratory factor analysis models with a bifactor rotation, and from Bayesian structural equation modeling (BSEM) bifactor models. Our simulation results suggested that BSEM with small variance priors on secondary loadings might be the preferred option. However, CFA with ML also performed well provided secondary loadings were modeled. We provide two empirical examples of applying the three methodologies using a normative sample of youth (z-proso, n = 1,286) and a university counseling sample (n = 359).

Abstract

Whether or not importance should be placed on an all-encompassing general factor of psychopathology (or p factor) in classifying, researching, diagnosing, and treating psychiatric disorders depends (among other issues) on the extent to which comorbidity is symptom-general rather than staying largely within the confines of narrower transdiagnostic factors such as internalizing and externalizing. In this study, we compared three methods of estimating p factor strength. We compared omega hierarchical and explained common variance calculated from confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) bifactor models with maximum likelihood (ML) estimation, from exploratory structural equation modeling/exploratory factor analysis models with a bifactor rotation, and from Bayesian structural equation modeling (BSEM) bifactor models. Our simulation results suggested that BSEM with small variance priors on secondary loadings might be the preferred option. However, CFA with ML also performed well provided secondary loadings were modeled. We provide two empirical examples of applying the three methodologies using a normative sample of youth (z-proso, n = 1,286) and a university counseling sample (n = 359).

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Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:06 Faculty of Arts > Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development
06 Faculty of Arts > Institute of Sociology
Dewey Decimal Classification:370 Education
Scopus Subject Areas:Social Sciences & Humanities > Clinical Psychology
Health Sciences > Psychiatry and Mental Health
Physical Sciences > Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
Language:English
Date:2 November 2019
Deposited On:26 Jul 2019 07:40
Last Modified:26 Jan 2022 20:49
Publisher:Taylor & Francis
ISSN:0022-3891
Additional Information:This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Personality Assessment on May 22th 2018, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00223891.2018.1468338.
OA Status:Green
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2018.1468338
PubMed ID:29787294
  • Content: Accepted Version
  • Language: English