Institute of Psychology, University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany.
Front Public Health. 2024 Sep 30;12:1472347. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1472347. eCollection 2024.
Communities That Care (CTC) is an evidence-based community change strategy for supporting healthy youth development. One of its key elements is the development of a community profile to identify and prioritise risk factors for health and behavioural problems in adolescents based on the CTC Youth Survey. The strategy was originally developed and evaluated in the United States. An adapted version of the survey has been used in Germany since its first implementation in 2008. However, the dimensionality and validity of the adapted risk factor scales have not yet been evaluated. Therefore, this study aimed to confirm the assumed unidimensional structure and to establish the concurrent criterion validity of each risk factor.
A sample of 1,911 adolescents attending grades six to eleven in Lower-Saxony, Germany, was used to evaluate 23 risk factor scales of the German CTC Youth Survey covering the domains peer/individual, family, school, and community. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the dimensional structure of all risk factors with sufficient item numbers. Goodness of fit was determined using CFI, SRMR, and RMSEA. Latent regression analysis tested the concurrent criterion validity of all unidimensional risk factors. For this, violent and delinquent behaviour, substance use, and depressive symptomatology were regressed on each risk factor.
All evaluable risk factors demonstrated acceptable to good model fit regarding unidimensionality and predicted violent and delinquent behaviour, and substance use better than depressive symptomatology. Regarding the peer/individual risk factors, there are particularly high correlations with violent and delinquent behaviour, and substance use. In contrast, two risk factors were not correlated with substance use, whilst two other risk factors were not correlated with depressive symptomatology.
Overall, the results indicate that most risk factors demonstrate unidimensionality and are valid in terms of concurrent criterion validity. Although some risk factors were not correlated with every outcome, they still predicted most outcomes, suggesting that the CTC Youth Survey is a viable tool for communities to assess their community risk profile. Risk factors that did not demonstrate unidimensionality or concurrent criterion validity should be monitored in future surveys and interpreted with caution until further evidence is available.
社区关怀（CTC）是一种基于证据的社区变化策略，用于支持青少年的健康发展。其关键要素之一是根据 CTC 青少年调查制定社区概况，以确定和优先考虑青少年健康和行为问题的风险因素。该策略最初在美国开发和评估。自 2008 年首次实施以来，德国一直在使用该调查的改编版本。然而，改编后的风险因素量表的维度和有效性尚未得到评估。因此，本研究旨在确认假设的单维结构，并建立每个风险因素的同时效标准效度。
使用德国下萨克森州六至十一年级的 1911 名青少年样本，评估德国 CTC 青少年调查涵盖同伴/个体、家庭、学校和社区领域的 23 个风险因素量表。使用足够项目数的确认性因子分析评估所有风险因素的维度结构。使用 CFI、SRMR 和 RMSEA 确定拟合优度。潜在回归分析测试所有单维风险因素的同时效标准效度。为此，将暴力和违法行为、物质使用和抑郁症状分别回归到每个风险因素上。
所有可评估的风险因素在单维性方面均表现出可接受至良好的模型拟合，并且预测暴力和违法行为以及物质使用的效果优于抑郁症状。关于同伴/个体风险因素，与暴力和违法行为以及物质使用具有特别高的相关性。相比之下，有两个风险因素与物质使用不相关，而另外两个风险因素与抑郁症状不相关。
总体而言，结果表明，大多数风险因素表现出单维性，并且在同时效标准效度方面是有效的。尽管一些风险因素与每个结果都不相关，但它们仍然预测了大多数结果，这表明 CTC 青少年调查是社区评估其社区风险概况的可行工具。没有表现出单维性或同时效标准效度的风险因素应在未来的调查中进行监测，并在获得进一步证据之前谨慎解释。
