Child Health and Parenting (CHAP), Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, Box 564, BMC, Husargatan 3, Uppsala, Sweden.
J Immigr Minor Health. 2024 Jun;26(3):539-545. doi: 10.1007/s10903-023-01563-5. Epub 2023 Oct 26.
Given the number of refugee youth whom require mental health support, there is a need to provide community-based interventions that can be easily scaled-up at a low cost. Yet, safety procedures associated with community-based intervention require careful consideration. The Cantril Ladder is a visual scale used to assess life satisfaction. It could be a useful tool to track the well-being of participants throughout an intervention. However, concerns have been raised about the validity of single-item life satisfaction measures and it is recommended they are tested when used in specific populations. This is particularly relevant to the refugee youth population who experience ongoing stress due to concern for family, friends, housing, and schooling and whose perceptions of life satisfaction may differ to the cohorts the Cantril Ladder has previously been tested with. The purpose of this study was to explore the validity of the Cantril Ladder as a measure of well-being and life satisfaction in refugee youth experiencing post-traumatic stress symptoms by exploring the relationship between how the youth scored on the Cantril Ladder with their scores on measures of depression and self-efficacy. Hierarchical multiple linear regression was applied to self-reported survey data in order to test how refugee youth experiencing post-traumatic stress symptoms (n = 51) score on the Cantril Ladder compared with Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and General Self Efficacy Scale (GSE) scores. The mean Cantril Ladder score in the present sample was 5.33 (SD = 2.77). The PHQ-9 and GSE total scores together explained 19.1% of the variability in the Cantril Ladder score. The Cantril Ladder showed moderate concurrent validity with validated measures of depression and self-efficacy. These findings have important implications for intervention programs designed to support refugee youth experiencing post-traumatic stress, as the Cantril Ladder offers a promising way to track well-being throughout the program as part of a wider safety protocol procedure. Additional research is required to not only confirm these findings, but also to test the face validity of the Cantril Ladder for a more complete validation of life satisfaction.
鉴于需要为大量需要心理健康支持的难民青年提供以社区为基础的干预措施，因此需要以低成本进行推广。然而，与以社区为基础的干预措施相关的安全程序需要仔细考虑。坎特里尔阶梯是一种用于评估生活满意度的视觉量表。它可以成为一种有用的工具，用于在整个干预过程中跟踪参与者的幸福感。然而，人们对单项生活满意度测量的有效性提出了担忧，建议在特定人群中使用时对其进行测试。这对于由于担心家庭、朋友、住房和教育而持续承受压力的难民青年来说尤其相关，他们对生活满意度的看法可能与坎特里尔阶梯之前测试的群体不同。本研究的目的是通过探讨青年在经历创伤后应激症状时如何在坎特里尔阶梯上的得分与抑郁和自我效能感测量得分之间的关系，探索坎特里尔阶梯作为衡量难民青年幸福感和生活满意度的有效性。为了测试经历创伤后应激症状的难民青年（n=51）在坎特里尔阶梯上的得分与患者健康问卷-9（PHQ-9）和一般自我效能感量表（GSE）得分的相关性，采用分层多元线性回归分析了自我报告的调查数据。本研究样本的平均坎特里尔阶梯得分为 5.33（SD=2.77）。PHQ-9 和 GSE 总分共同解释了坎特里尔阶梯得分的 19.1%。坎特里尔阶梯与经过验证的抑郁和自我效能感测量具有中等的同时有效性。这些发现对旨在支持经历创伤后应激的难民青年的干预计划具有重要意义，因为坎特里尔阶梯为在更广泛的安全协议程序中跟踪整个计划期间的幸福感提供了一种有前途的方法。需要进一步的研究不仅要证实这些发现，还要测试坎特里尔阶梯的表面有效性，以更全面地验证生活满意度。
