American Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics
Volume 2, Issue 3, May 2013, Pages: 61-66
Received: Apr. 23, 2013;
Published: May 30, 2013
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Authors
M. Fátima Salgueiro, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Department of Quantitative Methods and Business Research Unit, Lisbon, Portugal
Joana Malta, Statistics Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal
This Paper Proposes Modeling Trajectories of Psychological Well-being Using Latent Growth Curve models (LGCMs). The psychometric scale of the General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12) is considered. Data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), from years 2003 to 2006 are used. In 1991 Graetz proposed the GHQ-12 as a multidimensional scale, containing three distinct dimensions: anxiety and depression, social dysfunction and loss of confidence. Using such scale, this paper compares a second-order LGCM for the trajectories of a latent factor (measured by these three dimensions) with a LGCM for the trajectories of an overall sum score. Conditional LGCMs are then fitted; sex, age group and perceived health status are considered as the explanatory variables of the growth trajectories. Results show that the model which considers the three dimensions of subjective well-being has a larger explaining capability than the one utilizing the subjective well-being score.
M. Fátima Salgueiro,
Joana Malta,
Latent growth curve modeling of psychological well-being trajectories, American Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics.
Vol. 2, No. 3,
2013, pp. 61-66.
doi: 10.11648/j.ajtas.20130203.14
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