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J Psychopathol Behav Assess (2012) 34:253259 DOI 10.1007/s10862-012-9276-7
Investigating the Factor Structure of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale in Community and Clinical Samples of the Australian Population
Matthew Sunderland & Alison Mahoney &
Gavin Andrews
Published online: 3 February 2012# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract The Kessler 10 Psychological Distress Scale (K10) is a brief dimensional scale designed to measure and monitor trends of psychological distress. Recently the scale has been utilised by general practitioners and clinicians to screen for common mental disorders and measure treatment outcomes. Despite the K10 demonstrating a sound one dimensional structure in the general population, the scales structure has yet to be comprehensively tested in clinical samples. The current study aimed to use confirmatory factor analysis to test three theoretical structure models of the K10 and one model for the K6 (a six item variant) in a sample from a tertiary referral clinic for mood and anxiety disorders and compare those results with a population sample from the Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. The results demonstrated that a two factor model with correlated latent factors representing depression and anxiety fit the clinical sample the best whilst a one factor model with correlated errors between several items fit the population sample the best. The results are discussed further in relation to scoring and interpreting the Kessler scales.
Keywords Psychological distress . K10 . K6 . Factor analysis . Construct validity.
Introduction
Population based epidemiological studies utilise short dimensional scales to efficiently measure and monitor the extent of psychiatric illness and/or psychological distress in the wider community. The Kessler 10 psychological distress scale (K10) is one such scale designed to assess non-specific psychological distress and screen for common psychiatric disorders. Due to its brevity and desirable psychometric properties, the K10 has subsequently been used in multiple national surveys and in the World Mental Health Survey initiative (Andrews et al. 2001; Kessler et al. 1994; Kessler and Ustun 2004; Slade et al. 2009), as well as in primary care settings to identify severely distressed patients likely to benefit from treatment (Donker et al. 2010).
Although the K10 was originally developed to identify levels of non-specific psychological distress in the upper 90th99th percentile range of the general population, the K10...