Departamento de Odontologia Preventiva e Social, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Ramiro Barcelos 2492, 3º andar, Porto Alegre, RS, 90035-003, Brazil.
School of Health and Life Sciences, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
BMC Oral Health. 2022 Aug 9;22(1):337. doi: 10.1186/s12903-022-02373-1.
The Sense of Coherence (SOC) construct has been used worldwide in oral health research, but rigorous factor analyses of the scale are scarce. We aim to test the dimensional structure of the Brazilian short version of the SOC scale with 13 items.
This study is a secondary analysis of four independent cross-sectional Brazilian studies on oral health, using the 13-items SOC scale. Sample 1 was conducted on 1760 mothers and 1771 adolescents. Sample 2 comprised 1100 adults. Sample 3 had 720 adults and older individuals. Sample 4 comprised 664 adolescent students. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted on sample 1 to compare two models: 3-factor versus 1-factor. Because they were refuted, Exploratory Factor Analysis was implemented in samples 2 and 3. Modified models were tested in sample 4 using CFA. All analyses were conducted with MPlus version 7.11.
CFA of sample 1 resulted in an unacceptable fit (RMSEA = 0.12;CFI = 0.78; TLI = 0.73; and WRMR = 3.28) for 1-factor model and 3-factor (RMSEA = 0.10; CFI = 0.87; TLI = 0.84; and WRMR = 2.50). The EFA on samples 2 and 3 showed, respectively, two eigenvalues greater than 1 (4.11 and 1.56) and (4.32 and 1.42), but the scale items soc1, soc2 and soc3 formed an uninterpretable second factor. Another CFA, using sample 4, showed acceptable model fit after removing those three items and also soc11 (RMSEA = 0.05; CFI = 0.98; TLI = 0.99; and WRMR = 0.71).
The results indicate that the SOC-13 scale needs further adjustments. The one-factor model with nine items showed a good statistical fit, but the implications of excluding items should be further investigated, considering the scale's content validity, cross-cultural adaptation and theoretical background.
社会感（SOC）结构已在全球范围内用于口腔健康研究，但该量表的严格因子分析却很少。我们旨在使用 13 项巴西短版 SOC 量表检验其维度结构。
这是四项关于口腔健康的独立巴西横断面研究的二次分析，使用了 13 项 SOC 量表。样本 1 包括 1760 名母亲和 1771 名青少年。样本 2 包括 1100 名成年人。样本 3 有 720 名成年人和老年人。样本 4 包括 664 名青少年学生。样本 1 进行了验证性因子分析（CFA），比较了 3 因子模型与 1 因子模型。由于这两种模型都被拒绝，因此在样本 2 和 3 中进行了探索性因子分析。在样本 4 中使用 CFA 测试了修正模型。所有分析均使用 MPlus 版本 7.11 进行。
样本 1 的 CFA 对于 1 因子模型和 3 因子模型（RMSEA=0.10；CFI=0.87；TLI=0.84；和 WRMR=2.50）的拟合度均不理想（RMSEA=0.12；CFI=0.78；TLI=0.73；和 WRMR=3.28）。样本 2 和 3 的 EFA 分别显示了两个大于 1 的特征值（4.11 和 1.56）和（4.32 和 1.42），但量表项目 soc1、soc2 和 soc3 形成了一个无法解释的第二个因子。另一个 CFA ，使用样本 4 ，在删除这三个项目和 soc11 后，显示出可接受的模型拟合度（RMSEA=0.05；CFI=0.98；TLI=0.99；和 WRMR=0.71）。
结果表明 SOC-13 量表需要进一步调整。具有九个项目的单因子模型具有良好的统计拟合度，但应进一步研究排除项目的含义，考虑到量表的内容效度、跨文化适应性和理论背景。
