Abstract
BackgroundSocial relationships (SR) is an important domain of health-related quality of life. We developed and calibrated a novel item bank to measure SR in Singapore, a multi-ethnic city in Southeast Asia.MethodsWe developed an initial candidate pool of 51 items from focus groups, individual in-depth interviews and existing instruments that had been developed and/or validated for use in Singapore. We administered all items in English to a multi-stage sample of subjects, stratified for age and gender, with and without medical conditions, recruited from community and hospital settings. We calibrated their responses using Samejima’s Graded Response Model (SGRM). We evaluated a final 30-item bank with respect to Item Response Theory (IRT) model assumptions, model fit, differential item functioning (DIF), and concurrent and known-groups validity.ResultsAmong 503 participants (47.7% male, 41.4% above 50 years old, 34.0% Chinese, 33.6% Malay and 32.4% Indian), bi-factor model analyses supported essential unidimensionality: explained common variance of the general factor was 0.805 and omega hierarchical was 0.98. Local independence was deemed acceptable: the average absolute residual correlations were < 0.06 and 1.8% of the total item-pair residuals were flagged for local dependence. The overall SGRM model fit was adequate (p = 0.146). Five items exhibited DIF with respect to age, ethnicity and education, but were retained without modification of scores because they measured important aspects of SR. The SR scores correlated in the hypothesized direction with a self-reported measure of global health (Spearman’s rho = − 0.28, p < 0.001).ConclusionThe 30-item SR item bank has shown acceptable psychometric properties. Future studies to evaluate the validity of SR scores when items are administered adaptively are needed.
Highlights
All set quotas for sociodemographic categories were achieved within 5% of differences
This paper focuses on the analysis and calibration of the English Social relationships (SR) item bank
In the CFA, the results indicated the presence of secondary dimensions based on Comparative Fit Index (CFI) < 0.95, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) < 0.95 and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) > 0.06 (Table 2)
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) states that health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. [1] SRs are defined as having deep and meaningful human connections – in other words, having good relationships with family, friends and others. [2, 3] SR is found to be an important determinant of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in the literature. [4] there are static instruments such as Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS) to measure SR, there is no item bank to measure SR in the adult population. [5]There are item banks developed to measure social-related constructs such as social health before. [6, 7] One such example was an item bank that measured social health on an adult general population was developed on a very diverse latent construct that involved social role participation, social network quality, social integration and interpersonal communication. [6] This item bank may not be optimal to meaningful measure social relationship. There are item banks developed to measure social-related constructs such as social health before. [6, 7] One such example was an item bank that measured social health on an adult general population was developed on a very diverse latent construct that involved social role participation, social network quality, social integration and interpersonal communication. [6] This item bank may not be optimal to meaningful measure social relationship. A successfully calibrated item bank will allow us to develop CAT or short static instruments to measure SR in Singapore, whose multi-ethnic, English speaking population is in some ways a microcosm of Asia. Social relationships (SR) is an important domain of health-related quality of life. We developed and calibrated a novel item bank to measure SR in Singapore, a multi-ethnic city in Southeast Asia
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