Psychometric Properties of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale Form C in a Non-Western Culture

Date
2014-09-09
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
PLoS ONE
Abstract
Form C of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scales (MHLC-C) was designed to investigate health-related control beliefs of persons with an existing medical condition. The aim of the present study was to examine the psychometric properties of this instrument in a culture characterized by external control beliefs and learned helplessness—contrary to the societal context of original test development. Altogether, 374 Hungarian patients with cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes, and cardiovascular and musculoskeletal disorders were enrolled in the study. Besides the MHLC-C, instruments measuring general control beliefs, anxiety, depression, self-efficacy, and health behaviors were also administered to evaluate the validity of the scale. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic techniques were used to investigate the factor structure of the scale. Our results showed that the Hungarian adaptation of the instrument had a slightly different structure than the one originally hypothesized: in the present sample, a three-factor structure emerged where the items of the Doctors and the Others subscales loaded onto a single common component. Internal reliability of all three subscales was adequate (alphas between .71 and .79). Data concerning the instrument's validity were comparable with previous results from Western countries. These findings may suggest that health locus of control can be construed very similarly to Western countries even in a post-communist society—regardless of the potential differences in general control beliefs.
Description
Article deposited according to PLoS ONE license agreement http://www.plosone.org/static/license March 18, 2015.
Keywords
Behavioral and social aspects of health, Psychometrics, Culture, Depression, Eigenvalues, Medical doctors, Diabetes mellitus
Citation
Konkolÿ Thege, B., Rafael, B., & Rohánszky, M. (2014). Psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale Form C in a non-Western culture. PLoS ONE, 9(9), e107108.