[The latent variable growth curve model of longitudinal data and its implementation in Mplus].

To discuss the latent variable growth curve model of longitudinal data and give its implementation method in Mplus. The application of Mplus software has been used to deal with the longitudinal data of mental health status of college students in an university. Results show that the model can process the longitudinal data with latent variables, which can compare the differences of the overall development trend and individual development, also taking a covariate into the model to improve the effect of model fitting. Using Mplus software to process the longitudinal data with latent variables, the program is simple and easy to operate. This study provides the latent variable growth curve model of longitudinal data and its procedure of implementation in Mplus, and the statistical methodology guidance and reference for practical applications of epidemiological cohort study.