Abstract
The Multi-dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) is one of the most extensively used instruments to assess social support. The purpose of this research was to test the reliability, factorial validity, concurrent validity and measurement invariance across gender groups of the MSPSS in Chinese parents of children with cerebral palsy. A total of 487 participants aged 21–55 years were recruited to complete the Chinese MSPSS and Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF). Composite reliability was calculated as the internal consistency of the Chinese MSPSS and a (multi-group) confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to test the factorial validity and measurement invariance across gender. And Pearson correlations were calculated to test the relationships between MSPSS and PSI-SF. The Chinese MSPSS had satisfactory internal reliability with composite reliability values of more than 0.7. The CFA indicated that the original three-factor model was replicated in this specific population. Importantly, the results of the multi-group CFA demonstrated that configural, metric, and scalar invariance across gender groups was supported. In addition, all the three subscales of MSPSS were significant related with PSI-SF. These findings suggest that the Chinese MSPSS is a reliable and valid tool for assessing social support and can generally be utilized across sex in the parents of children with cerebral palsy.
Highlights
Cerebral palsy (CP), as a common cause of disability in children, is a serious threat to parents’ psychological and physical health (Cheshire et al, 2010; Whittingham et al, 2013)
The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) analysis found that all the fit indices of the threefactor model meet their corresponding criteria very well, χ2(51) = 170.67, p < 0.001, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.969, NNFI = 0.959, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.069, SRMR = 0.037
The present study aimed to investigate the reliability, factorial validity, measurement invariance across gender of the Chinese Multi-dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) in parents of children with CP
Summary
Cerebral palsy (CP), as a common cause of disability in children, is a serious threat to parents’ psychological and physical health (Cheshire et al, 2010; Whittingham et al, 2013). Social support is an important resource to cope with various stressors (Campbell et al, 2011), and can mediate the influence of parenting stress on psychological and physical health in parents of children with CP (Jeong et al, 2013). The MSPSS assesses different sources of support (i.e., family, friends, and significant others). This instrument is brief yet comprehensive, easy to understand. The MSPSS is a 12-item questionnaire, which is a selfadministered measure of perceived social support developed by Zimet et al (1988). These authors found that the MSPSS had good reliability (with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.85 to 0.91). The MSPSS was found to be negatively related to parenting stress, loneliness and depression, and positively related to self-esteem and life satisfaction, indicating good concurrent validity of the MSPSS (Dunst et al, 1986; Bruwer et al, 2008; Jeong et al, 2013; Zhao et al, 2013; Kong et al, 2015)
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