Assessing the structural validity and measurement invariance of the Psychological Problems scale on a sample of international students

Objective: The main purpose of the current study is to examine the factorial structure of the Psychological Problems (PP) scale, which is an inventory used for assessing anxious and depressive symptoms. No previous studies were found in which the dimensionality of the measure has been examined. Method: In order to test the underlying factorial structure of the scale, we performed both exploratory principal axis factor analysis and maximum likelihood robust confirmatory factor-analytic analysis on a sample of 266 international students. Parallel analysis was also computed to identify the number of factors to take into account. Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses were performed to evaluate the factorial invariance of the scale across gender. Results: Our results yield a bifactorial structure. One item is removed due to its double-loading, resulting in a 14-item scale. Both of the subscales’ alpha coefficients are good, with satisfying levels of adjusted item-scale correlations. Findings from the measurement invariance indicate adequate configural, metric, scalar and strict invariance across gender. Conclusion: We conceptualize the two scales emerged from our factor analysis studies in terms of affective and psychosomatic domains of psychological problems. Despite some limitations, our findings may add new theoretical and practical implications, which are discussed also providing directions for future research.