Measurement and Structural Invariance of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms in Hispanic and Caucasian Firefighters: A Bias-Corrected Bootstrap Confidence Intervals Approach. (March 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Arbona, Consuelo; Fan, Weihua; Schwartz, Jonathan; Pao, Christine; Tran, Jana K.; Buser, Sam
• Is Part Of: Assessment. Volume 26:Number 2(2019)
• Page Start: 209
• Page End: 222
• Publication Date: 2019-03
• Subjects: posttraumatic stress disorder -- PTSD -- Hispanic -- ethnicity -- factor structure -- invariance testing; Psychological tests -- Periodicals; Psychodiagnostics -- Periodicals; Personality tests -- Periodicals; 150.287
• DOI: 10.1177/1073191116685805
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1073-1911

Abstract

This study compared across Hispanic and Caucasian firefighters the relative fit of the four-factor Emotional Numbing and Dysphoria posttraumatic stress disorder models to the more recently proposed Dysphoric Arousal five-factor model. As hypothesized, the Dysphoric Arousal five-factor model emerged as the best fitting model within each ethnic group and it also showed measurement invariance between groups (configural invariance). Results of multigroup confirmatory factor analyses and a bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals analytic approach indicated that the five factor model also demonstrated invariance in factor loadings (metric invariance) and item-level intercepts (scalar invariance) across the two ethnic groups. Results indicate that the Dysphoric Arousal five factor model captures similar psychological constructs across Caucasian and English-speaking Hispanic firefighters. Therefore, observed factor scores are comparable across ethnic groups and can be combined when examining predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder severity.