Examining Cross-Cultural Invariance of Common Mental Disorder Symptom Measures in the United States and Singapore

BackgroundConstructs of common mental disorder (CMD) symptoms, including anxiety, depression, obsessions, compulsions, and worry, are observed in a wide range of psychiatric conditions. Reliable and valid measurements of these CMD symptoms are essential for building a generalizable science of psychopathology and ensuring valid comparisons of scores across distinct groups. Accordingly, the current study determined the psychometric properties of four widely used CMD symptom measures in the United States (U.S.) and Singapore.MethodParticipants comprised college students (U.S.: n = 292; SG: n = 144) who completed the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R), and Penn State Worry Questionnaire-Abbreviated (PSWQ-A).ResultsStrict measurement invariance (equal factor loadings, item thresholds, residual variances) was observed for all measures across cultures. Singapore had higher latent mean scores of worry than the U.S. sample.ConclusionsOverall, findings suggest a strong degree of cross-cultural construct compatibility. Given this finding, higher latent factor means for worry, perfectionism, and uncertainty scores likely reflect true group differences, suggesting that these symptom measures can be used to aid further study and assessment of cross-cultural differences in symptom prevalence and presentation in CMDs. We tested the measurement invariance of CMD symptom measures across cultures in Singapore and the U.S. Analyses revealed strict cross-cultural and cross-gender measurement invariance across four CMD symptom assessments. Overall, findings suggest a strong degree of cross-cultural construct compatibility. However, higher latent factor levels of worry in Singapore than in the U.S. sample meant that this factor represents culturally salient treatment targets.