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This study looked at the relationship between the Mental Health Inventory-38 and the NEO-FFI-3 among Filipinos. The Mental Health Inventory-38 is intended as a broadband measure of mental health and well-being. The NEO-FFI-3 is intended as a brief version of the NEO-PI-3, which describes personality in terms of the Five Factor Model, namely Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Participants were 1040 Filipino citizens between 18 to 66 years old. Among the five factors, Neuroticism had the strongest negative association with mental health and Psychological Well-Being, while having the strongest positive association with Psychological Distress. Neuroticism also dominated correlations with the MHI-38 subscales. Correlations with Extraversion were modest in comparison for both the MHI-38 global indices and subscales. Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness are poorly represented in the MHI-38. The pattern of correlations calls the validity of some MHI-38 constructs into question.
Keywords: mental health, five-factor model, Filipinos, personality
The MHI-38 was first published in 1982 and has since become widely accepted as a broadband measure of Psychological Distress and Psychological Well-Being. Nevertheless, its underlying hierarchical structure remains a source of controversy. Veit and Ware (1983) described a global mental health factor, as well as a two-factor structure consisting of Psychological Distress and Psychological Well-Being. They also described a five-factor solution consisting of anxiety, depression, loss of behavioral/emotional control, emotional ties, and general positive affect, which were replicated across five regional subsamples. Using an adolescent sample from the MHI-38 normative data, Ostroff, Woolverton, Berry, and Lesko (1996) found that principal component solution with varimax rotation resembled the two-factor model of Psychological Distress and Psychological Well-Being. The global one-factor model was weakly supported, and the solution consisting of five factors was not supported.
In this article, we evaluate the content and construct validity of the MHI-38 against the Five Factor Model, as measured by the NEOFFI-3. Personality traits may be regarded as "patterns of thought, feelings, and behavior," that influence the probability of behaviors consistent with any particular trait. As with the MHI-38, the FFM contains a perspective on both psychological health and mental disorder / distress / pathology but does so through the more rigorous model of the five factors. In brief, each factor forms a bipolar dimension consisting of one relatively healthier...