Preliminary examination of the measurement invariance of the metacognition about health questionnaire: A study on Chinese and British nursing students

Abstract

Metacognition is a promising variable for understanding the development and maintenance of mental disorders. As a regulator and interpreter of cognition, it may be influenced by culture. The Metacognition about Health Questionnaire (MCQ-HA) is a tool especially designed for measuring health anxiety-related metacognitive beliefs. This study aimed to preliminarily test the measurement invariance of MCQ-HA between Chinese and British nursing students. With convenience sampling, 220 Chinese and 240 British nursing major students were assessed by the MCQ-HA. Confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group confirmatory factor analysis were performed to examine the factor structure and the measurement invariance between the two groups. Results of the confirmatory factor analysis provided support for the expected three-factor structure. A series of multi-group confirmatory factor analysis supported the full configural invariance, full metric invariance, partial scalar, and partial strict invariance. The intercepts of nine items and the error variances of seven items were not equivalent. The implications of these findings on a cross-national comparison of health anxiety-related metacognitive beliefs were discussed.