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May 23, 2024 · The mental health continuum model is designed to help identify specific changes in health and performance in six different domains: mood, attitude and performance, sleep, physical health, social well-being, and substance use/gambling/gaming issues.
- Mental Health Continuum Model (MHCM) - Canada.ca
Mental health, like physical health, exists on a continuum....
- Mental health resources for CAF Members and their families
Mental Health Continuum Model: The Mental Health Continuum...
- Mental Health Continuum Model (MHCM) - Canada.ca
Mental health, like physical health, exists on a continuum. It is a dynamic changing state that can deteriorate or improve given the right set of circumstances. Therefore, mental health concerns, if identified and treated early, have the potential to be temporary and reversible.
Mental Health Continuum Model: The Mental Health Continuum Model is a reliable tool used to assess, interpret, and predict CAF members’ psychological, social, and emotional well-being. Members can also use this tool to self-monitor and self-identify changes in their own mental health.
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Method
- Results
- Discussion
- Acknowledgment
Background
Compared to the general Canadian population, military members exhibit a higher prevalence of depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder. However, there is a paucity of research investigating the extent to which military members experience positive mental health. Validation of positive mental health measures, including the Mental Health Continuum – Short Form (MHC-SF), is necessary to determine whether well-being can be assessed in a valid and reliable manner a...
Data and methods
Data were drawn from the nationally representative 2013 Canadian Forces Mental Health Survey (CFMHS) conducted by Statistics Canada. A random sample of 8,200 CAF military personnel completed the CFMHS, representing 64,400 Regular Force and 4,460 Reserve Force CAFpersonnel.
Results
As expected, all three MHC-SF subscales (psychological, social, and emotional well-being) correlated positively with life satisfaction, self-rated mental health, sense of belonging, and social support, and correlated negatively with psychological distress and disability due to health conditions. Internal consistency was high. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the three-factor structure of the MHC-SF, and measurement invariance was satisfied.
Traditional definitions conceptualized overall mental and physical health as the absence of disease.Note 1Note 2 These conventional interpretations of health have since evolved to acknowledge that mental (and physical) health cannot be reduced to the absence of illness, but instead involve a complex interplay of social, psychological and biological...
Participants and procedure
Data were drawn from the cross-sectional, nationally representative CFMHS conducted in 2013.Note 29 The CFMHS was conducted by Statistics Canada, whereby a random sample of 8,200 CAF military members (6,700 Regular Force members; 1,500 Primary Reserve Force members) completed a survey reflecting their mental health, predictors of mental health and use of mental health services.Note 30 Target populations were stratified by rank and deployment to Afghanistan (deployed versus not deployed to Afg...
Measures
Positive mental health: The primary measure used for this study was the MHC-SF.Note 5Note 6 The 14-item MHC-SF measures past-month psychological, social, and emotional well-being facets on a 6-point frequency scale ranging from 1 = every day to 6 = never. Items were rescaled such that scores range from 0 = never to 5 = every day, and scores were summed such that higher scores represent greater well-being. Past research supports the reliability and validity of the MHC-SF within Canadian sample...
Data analytic strategy
We calculated descriptive statistics, including means, 95% confidence intervals (CIs), skewness, kurtosis, and Cronbach’s alphas, as well as bivariate correlations, for all study variables using SAS 9.4 statistical software.Note 37 All analyses were conducted separately across Regular Force and Reserve Force members, and sampling weights were applied across analyses to obtain estimates that are representative of the population. Variance estimates were calculated using 95% CIsderived using 500...
Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations
Descriptive statistics for all study variables across Regular Force and Reserve Force members are displayed in Table 2. Cronbach’s alphas were high across all variables, ranging from .82 (psychological distress) to .93 (social support). The MHC total scale and subscales also had strong Cronbach’s alphas, ranging from .81 to .91. Skewness and kurtosis values for the MHCtotal scale and subscales were also within recommended cutoff values (skewness range for Regular Force members = -1.48 to -0.6...
Confirmatory factor analyses
When a three-dimensional MHC structure was examined in the Regular Force, model fit was acceptable: χ2(74) = 1,319.73, p < 0.001; CFI = .942; TLI = .929; RMSEA = .051, 90% CI= .049 to .053. Factor loadings were strong, ranging from .626 (Item 7, Social Well-Being subscale) to .851 (Item 3, Emotional Well-Being subscale). Latent variable correlations were significant, with social and emotional well-being correlated at .668, psychological and emotional well-being correlated at .853, and social...
Measurement invariance across Regular Force and Reserve Force members
First, the configural model demonstrated good model fit, indicating that the number of factors was invariant across Regular Force and Reserve Force members (see Table 4). The metric model was also not significantly different from the configural model, ∆χ2(11) = 10.99, p > .05, ∆CFI = .000, ∆RMSEA = .002, indicating that the factor loadings were invariant across Regular Force and Reserve Force members. Finally, the scalar invariance model fit significantly worse than the metric model according...
Our findings show that the reliability of the MHC-SF was strong across Regular Force and Reserve Force members, with Cronbach’s alphas comparable to or stronger than previous research among general Canadian samples.Note 19 Convergent validity estimates revealed that the MHC-SF total scale and subscales correlated in expected directions with life sa...
We thank Dr. Heather Orpana for her assistance and methodological clarifications related to the psychometric evaluation of the MHC-SFconducted in the Canadian general population.
What is the Mental Health Continuum? The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) developed a Mental Health Continuum that helps to explain how people cope. It describes the spectrum of mental health concerns that may impact CAF members and their families.
MENTAL HEALTH IN THE CANADIAN ARMED FORCES AIM 1. Over the last two decades the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has been working to rebuild the mental health care system after drastic cuts in the 1990s. Efforts include restructuring of the CAF’s health system, increased funding, increased access to personnel and programs, increased
Oct 26, 2021 · Validation of positive mental health measures, including the Mental Health Continuum – Short Form (MHC-SF) is necessary to determine whether well-being can be assessed in a valid and reliable...
