Division of Public and Organizational Health, Center of Salutogenesis, Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute, University of Zurich, Hirschengraben 84, Zurich, 8001, Switzerland.
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.
BMC Psychol. 2024 May 26;12(1):293. doi: 10.1186/s40359-024-01805-7.
Sense of coherence (SOC) is a personal resource that reflects the extent to which one perceives the world as comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful. Decades of empirical research consistently show that SOC is an important protective resource for health and well-being. Despite the extensive use of the 13-item measure of SOC, there remains uncertainty regarding its factorial structure. Additionally, a valid and reliable Czech version of the scale is lacking. Therefore, the present study aims to examine the psychometric properties of the SOC-13 scale in a representative sample of Czech adults.
An online survey was completed by 498 Czech adults (18-86 years old) between November 2021 and December 2021. We used confirmatory factor analysis to examine the factorial structure of the scale. Further, we examined the variations in SOC based on age and gender, and we tested the criterion validity of the scale using the short form of the Mental Health Continuum (MHC) scale and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) scale as mental health outcomes.
SOC-13 showed an acceptable one- and three-factor fit only with specified residual covariance between items 2 and 3. We tested alternative short versions by systematically removing poorly performing items. The fit significantly improved for all shorter versions with SOC-9 having the best psychometric properties with a clear one-factorialstructure. We found that SOC increases with age and males score higher than females. SOC showed a moderately strong positive correlation with MHC, and a moderately strong negative correlation with GAD. These findings were similar for all tested versions supporting the criterion validity of the SOC scale.
Our findings suggest that shortened versions of the SOC-13 scale have better psychometric properties than the original 13-item version in the Czech adult population. Particularly, SOC-9 emerges as a viable alternative, showing comparable reliability and validity as the 13-item version and a clear one-factorial structure in our sample.
意义感（SOC）是一种个人资源，反映了一个人感知世界的可理解性、可管理性和意义性的程度。几十年来的实证研究一致表明，SOC 是健康和幸福的重要保护资源。尽管广泛使用 SOC 的 13 项测量方法，但它的因子结构仍然存在不确定性。此外，该量表缺乏有效的捷克语版本。因此，本研究旨在考察 SOC-13 量表在捷克成年人代表性样本中的心理测量特性。
2021 年 11 月至 12 月期间，通过在线调查完成了 498 名捷克成年人（18-86 岁）的调查。我们使用验证性因子分析来检验该量表的因子结构。此外，我们根据年龄和性别检验 SOC 的变化，并使用心理健康连续体（MHC）量表和广泛性焦虑症（GAD）量表的简短形式作为心理健康结果来检验该量表的效标效度。
SOC-13 仅在指定项目 2 和 3 之间的特定残余协方差时表现出可接受的单因子和三因子拟合。我们通过系统地删除表现不佳的项目来测试替代的简短版本。所有较短版本的拟合度都显著提高，SOC-9 具有最佳的心理测量特性，具有清晰的单因子结构。我们发现 SOC 随年龄增长而增加，男性得分高于女性。SOC 与 MHC 呈中度强正相关，与 GAD 呈中度强负相关。所有测试版本的这些发现都相似，支持 SOC 量表的效标效度。
我们的研究结果表明，SOC-13 量表的缩短版本在捷克成年人群体中具有比原始 13 项版本更好的心理测量特性。特别是，SOC-9 作为一种可行的替代方案出现，在我们的样本中表现出与 13 项版本相当的可靠性和有效性，以及清晰的单因子结构。
