SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Structural equation modeling”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,027 records · Page 57Linked to original sources

PubMed2006

Cognitive determinants of MDMA use among college students in Southern Taiwan.

This study was aimed to examine the Attitudes-Social influence-Efficacy Model for the use of MDMA among college students in Taiwan. A representative sample of 3743 college students participated in this study. Each participant completed a comprehensive survey and 3090 valid data were collected. Correlation analyses displayed that either positive outcome expectancy or social influence was positively related to intention while refusal self-efficacy was negatively associated with intention. Using the Structural Equation Model, the results showed that the model fitted the data well. Intention for using MDMA affected MDMA use. Refusing self-efficacy significantly predicted intention and MDMA use indirectly via intention. Social influence had a direct impact on intention or MDMA use as well as an indirect effect on MDMA use via intention. However, positive outcome expectancy did not have an effect on both intention and the use of MDMA. Our results suggested that preventive programs in colleges for MDMA use should focus on developing strategies in decreasing the social influence and enhancing the refusal self-efficacy.

Cognition↗

PubMed2006

On the links between self-discrepancies, rumination, metacognitions, and symptoms of depression in undergraduates.

The present study aimed to test the central components of Papageorgiou and Wells' (2003) non-clinical metacognitive model of rumination and depression that is grounded on the Self-Regulatory Executive Function (S-REF) model of emotional disorders [Wells, A., & Matthews, G. (1994). Attention and emotion: A clinical perspective. Hove, UK: Lawrence Erlbaum.]. A second aim of this study was to extend the non-clinical model with the concept of self-discrepancy in line with the S-REF model. Data of the current study were collected in a large sample of non-clinical Dutch undergraduates (N=196), who completed a battery of questionnaires including measures of rumination, positive and negative metacognitions, depressive symptoms, and self-discrepancy (i.e., actual-ideal, actual-ought, and actual-feared discrepancies). Hypothesized relationships among these variables were tested by means of structural equation modelling. Following some theoretically consistent modifications, the model was an adequate fit to the data. With respect to the second aim of the study, self-discrepancies were directly linked to symptoms of depression as well as indirectly via the cognitive processes involved in the metacognitive model of rumination and depression. Evidence was found for positive beliefs about rumination to partially mediate the relation between self-discrepancy and rumination. Clinical implications of the findings, including implementation of a metacognitive-focused cognitive therapy of depression, and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Testing a self-determination theory intervention for motivating tobacco cessation: supporting autonomy and competence in a clinical trial.

A longitudinal randomized trial tested the self-determination theory (SDT) intervention and process model of health behavior change for tobacco cessation (N = 1006). Adult smokers were recruited for a study of smokers' health and were assigned to intensive treatment or community care. Participants were relatively poor and undereducated. Intervention patients perceived greater autonomy support and reported greater autonomous and competence motivations than did control patients. They also reported greater medication use and significantly greater abstinence. Structural equation modeling analyses confirmed the SDT process model in which perceived autonomy support led to increases in autonomous and competence motivations, which in turn led to greater cessation. The causal role of autonomy support in the internalization of autonomous motivation, perceived competence, and smoking cessation was supported.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Race and gender influences on adjustment in early adolescence: investigation of an integrative model.

This research investigated an integrative model of race- and gender-related influences on adjustment during early adolescence using a sample of 350 Black and White youth. In the proposed model, prejudice/discrimination events, as well as race and gender daily hassles, contribute to a general stress context. The stress context, in turn, influences levels of emotional and behavioral problems in adjustment, with these associations mediated (in part) by intervening effects on self-esteem. Racial and gender identity similarly have positive effects on adjustment via their intermediary linkages with self-esteem. Structural equation modeling analyses provided support for all of these aspects of the model. Findings also revealed theoretically predicted differences in model parameters across race by gender subgroups. These include a direct effect of prejudice/discrimination events on emotional problems specific to Black youth and an effect of gender identity on self-esteem specific to girls. Black girls appeared to be most vulnerable to exhibiting significant adjustment difficulties as a result of the processes under investigation.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

A multivariate method for measurement error correction using pairs of concentration biomarkers.

PURPOSE: Measurement error is a pervasive problem in behavioral epidemiology, and available methods of correction all have generally untenable assumptions. We propose a multivariate method with more realistic assumptions. METHODS: The method uses two concentration biomarkers for each nutritional variable of interest and structural equation modeling. This produces corrected estimates of the effects on an outcome variable of changing the true exposure variables by one standard deviation, a standardized regression calibration. However, hypothesis testing in original units is preserved. The main assumptions are that certain error correlations between dietary estimates and biomarkers or between biomarkers be close to zero. RESULTS: Two illustrative models used simulated data with the covariance structure of a real data set. The corrections produced often were very substantial. A sensitivity analysis allowed error correlations to depart from zero over a modest range. Root mean square biases show the advantage of the corrected approach. Relatively large calibration studies are needed for adequate precision. CONCLUSIONS: As long as concentration biomarkers are selected carefully, error-corrected multivariate hypothesis testing and standardized effect estimation is possible. With the deviations from assumptions that were tested, the corrected method usually produces much less biased results than an uncorrected analysis.

Bias↗

PubMed2000

Do friendships change behaviors, or do behaviors change friendships? Examining paths of influence in young adolescents' alcohol use.

PURPOSE: This study examined support for models of peer influence, which postulates that young adolescents whose friends use alcohol will also engage in that behavior, and of peer selection, whereby young adolescents seek out friends whose drinking behavior is similar to their own. METHODS: Data for this study are from 1804 adolescents participating in Project Northland, a school- and community-based alcohol use prevention trial. Using latent variable structural equation modeling, a series of models examined directions of influence between participant alcohol use and friend drug use over three points in Grades 7, 8, and 9. RESULTS: Findings indicated that higher levels of friends' drug use led to increased participant alcohol use. The reverse-order relationship (i.e., greater participant involvement in alcohol leading to more drug use among friends) was not supported by these data. Finally, best-fitting models supported the notion that both participants' alcohol use and the alcohol and other drug use of friends were highly stable over time. CONCLUSIONS: Similarity in drinking behavior among adolescent friends may be more related to processes of peer influence than to processes of peer selection. Findings support the utility of alcohol use prevention programs that equip younger teens with skills to resist peer influences to use alcohol.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

A practical and theoretical guide to measurement invariance in aging research.

We describe mathematical and statistical models for factor invariance. We demonstrate that factor invariance is a condition of measurement invariance. In any study of change (as over age) measurement invariance is necessary for valid inference and interpretation. Two important forms of factorial invariance are distinguished: "configural" and "metric". Tests for factorial invariance and the range of tests from strong to weak are illustrated with multiple group factor and structural equation modeling analyses (with programs such as LISREL, COSAN, and RAM). The tests are for models of the organization and age changes of intellectual abilities. The models are derived from current theory of fluid (Gf) and crystallized (Gc) abilities. The models are made manifest with measurements of the WAIS-R in the standardization sample. Although this is a methodological paper, the key issues and major principles and conclusions are presented in basic English, devoid of technical details and obscure notation. Conceptual principles of multivariate methods of data analysis are presented in terms of substantive issues of importance for the science of the psychology of aging.

Aged↗

PubMed2003

A model of the willingness to use telemedicine for routine and specialized care.

We examined factors associated with the willingness to use telemedicine for routine and specialized care within a theoretical framework. The conceptual model proposed that willingness to use telemedicine is associated directly with attitudes to telemedicine, attitudes to the patient-physician relationship, and to satisfaction with current health-care. In addition, technology anxiety and past behaviour were both assumed to affect willingness to use telemedicine indirectly. Telephone interviews were conducted with a national sample of 1204 Jewish, non-institutionalized adults in Israel. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the hypothesized relationships. Participants were more willing to use telemedicine for routine than for specialized care. Overall, willingness to use telemedicine was affected by attitudes to telemedicine, attitudes to the patient-physician relationship and by level of technology anxiety. Educational interventions aimed at encouraging the use of telemedicine should target potential users' attitudes, as well as feelings of uneasiness and anxiety regarding technology.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Job stress, unwinding and drinking in transit operators.

OBJECTIVE: This study tests the spillover model of the effects of work stress on after-work drinking, using the variable "length of time to unwind" as a mediator. METHOD: A total of 1,974 transit operators were contacted and 1,553 (79%) of them participated in a personal interview. Complete data on the variables in this analysis were available for 1,208 respondents (84% men). Using latent variable structural equation modeling, a model was tested that predicted that daily job problems, skipped meals and less social support from supervisor would increase alcohol consumption through the mediator, length of time to unwind and relax after work. Increased alcohol consumption was, in turn, hypothesized to increase drinking problems. RESULTS: As predicted, skipped meals and daily job problems increased length of time to unwind and had an indirect positive relationship with overall drinking, even when controlling for drinking norms and demographic variables. Overall drinking was positively associated with drinking problems. Supervisor support at work, however, did not significantly influence length of time to unwind. Difficulty unwinding (longer time to unwind) did not have direct effects on drinking problems; however, indirect effects through overall drinking were observed. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide preliminary support for the mediating role of length of time to unwind and relax after work in a spillover model of the stress-drinking relationship. This research introduces a new mediator and empirical links between job problems, length of time to unwind, drinking and drinking problems, which ground more substantively the domains of work stress and alcohol consumption.

Alcohol Drinking↗

PubMed2001

International validation of the CLAU-S quality-of-life questionnaire for use in patients with intermittent claudication.

BACKGROUND: Intermittent claudication (IC) occurs in patients with peripheral occlusive arterial disease and results in leg pain after walking a certain distance - the claudication distance. Until recently, no specific questionnaire has been available to measure quality of life in patients with IC. OBJECTIVES: To validate the Claudication Scale (CLAU-S) questionnaire in patients in France, the UK, Germany and Belgium. METHODS: Patients completed the CLAU-S questionnaire and provided demographic and clinical data. Pooled data were examined for psychometric and structural validity and test-retest reliability. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to confirm that the questionnaire was measuring the causal relationships involved in IC in each of the language groups studied. RESULTS: Cross-sectional and factor analysis confirmed the validity of the questionnaire in the pooled patient population. Item convergent and discriminant coefficients and internal consistency reliability coefficients met or exceeded standard criteria. Principal component analysis confirmed the factorial structure. The underlying causal relationships in IC were identified using SEM and were consistent in all language groups studied. CONCLUSIONS: The CLAU-S questionnaire has undergone validation in English, French, German and Flemish and has a very satisfactory validity in these languages.

Aged↗

PubMed2006

Social support and ambulatory blood pressure: an examination of both receiving and giving.

The relationship between the social network and physical health has been studied extensively and it has consistently been shown that individuals live longer, have fewer physical symptoms of illness, and have lower blood pressure when they are a member of a social network than when they are isolated. Much of the research has focused on the benefits of receiving social support from the network and the effects of giving to others within the network have been neglected. The goal of the present research was to systematically investigate the relationship between giving and ambulatory blood pressure. Systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, mean arterial pressure, and heart rate were recorded every 30 min during the day and every 60 min at night during a 24-h period. Linear mixed models analyses revealed that lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure and mean arterial pressure were related to giving social support. Furthermore, correlational analyses revealed that participants with a higher tendency to give social support reported greater received social support, greater self-efficacy, greater self-esteem, less depression, and less stress than participants with a lower tendency to give social support to others. Structural equation modeling was also used to test a proposed model that giving and receiving social support represent separate pathways predicting blood pressure and health. From this study, it appears that giving social support may represent a unique construct from receiving social support and may exert a unique effect on health.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Lexical and talker effects on word recognition among native and non-native listeners with normal and impaired hearing.

Evidence suggests that word recognition depends on numerous talker-, listener-, and stimulus-related characteristics. The current study examined the effects of talker variability and lexical difficulty on spoken-word recognition among four groups of listeners: native listeners with normal hearing or hearing impairment (moderate sensorineural hearing loss) and non-native listeners with normal hearing or hearing impairment. The ability of listeners to accommodate trial-to-trial variations in talkers' voice was assessed by comparing recognition scores for a single-talker condition to those obtained in a multiple-talker condition. Lexical difficulty was assessed by comparing word-recognition performance between lexically "easy" and "hard" words as determined by frequency of occurrence in language and the structural characteristics of similarity neighborhoods formalized in the Neighborhood Activation Model. An up-down adaptive procedure was used to determine the sound pressure level for 50% performance. Non-native listeners in both normal-hearing and hearing-impaired groups required greater intensity for equal intelligibility than the native normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners. Results, however, showed significant effects of talker variability and lexical difficulty for the four groups. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that an audibility factor accounts for 2-3 times more variance in performance than does a linguistic-familiarity factor. However, the linguistic-familiarity factor is also essential to the model fit. The results demonstrated effects of talker variability and lexical difficulty on word recognition for both native and nonnative listeners with normal or impaired hearing. The results indicate that linguistic and indexical factors should be considered in the development of speech-recognition tests.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2007

Global self-esteem, goal achievement orientations, and self-determined behavioural regulations in a physical education setting.

We examined a theoretical model of global self-esteem that incorporated constructs from achievement goal and self-determination theories. The model hypothesized that self-determined or autonomous motives would mediate the influence of achievement goal orientation on global self-esteem. The adapted version of the Behavioural Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire (Mullan et al., 1997), the Perception of Success Questionnaire (Roberts & Balague, 1991), and Rosenberg's (1965) self-esteem scales were administered to 634 high school students aged 11 - 15 years. A structural equation model supported the hypotheses and demonstrated that autonomous motives mediated the effect of goal orientations on global self-esteem. The results suggest that generalized motivational orientations influence self-esteem by affecting autonomous motivation and is consistent with theory that suggests that experiences relating to intrinsic motivation are the mechanism by which global motivational orientations are translated into adaptive outcomes like self-esteem. The findings suggest that physical activity interventions that target autonomous motives in physical activity contexts are likely to enhance young people's general self-esteem.

Achievement↗

PubMed2001

Suicide risk factors for young adults: testing a model across ethnicities.

A general path model based on existing suicide risk research was developed to test factors contributing to current suicidal ideation in young adults. A sample of 673 undergraduate students completed a packet of questionnaires containing the Beck Depression Inventory, Adult Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire, and Multi-Attitude Suicide Tendency Scale. They also provided information on history of suicidality and exposure to attempted and completed suicide in others. Structural equation modeling was used to test the fit of the data to the hypothesized model. Goodness-of-fit indices were adequate and supported the interactive effects of exposure, repulsion by life, depression, and history of self-harm on current ideation. Model fit for three subgroups based on race/ethnicity (i.e., White, Black, and Hispanic) determined that repulsion by life and depression function differently across groups. Implications of these findings for current methods of suicide risk assessment and future research are discussed in the context of the importance of culture.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1999

Adolescent religiousness and its influence on substance use: preliminary findings from the Mid-Atlantic School Age Twin Study.

Research has consistently shown that religiousness is associated with lower levels of alcohol and drug use, but little is known about the nature of adolescent religiousness or the mechanisms through which it influences problem behavior in this age group. This paper presents preliminary results from the Mid-Atlantic School Age Twin Study, a prospective, population-based study of 6-18-year-old twins and their mothers. Factor analysis of a scale developed to characterize adolescent religiousness, the Religious Attitudes and Practices Inventory (RAPI), revealed three factors: theism, religious/spiritual practices, and peer religiousness. Twin correlations and univariate behavior-genetic models for these factors and a measure of belief that drug use is sinful reveal in 357 twin pairs that common environmental factors significantly influence these traits, but a minor influence of genetic factors could not be discounted. Correlations between the multiple factors of adolescent religiousness and substance use, comorbid problem behavior, mood disorders, and selected risk factors for substance involvement are also presented. Structural equation modeling illustrates that specific religious beliefs about the sinfulness of drugs and level of peer religiousness mediate the relationship between theistic beliefs and religious/spiritual practices on substance use. Limitations and future analyses are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1995

The trait-state-error model for multiwave data.

Although researchers in clinical psychology routinely gather data in which many individuals respond at multiple times, there is not a standard way to analyze such data. A new approach for the analysis of such data is described. It is proposed that a person's current standing on a variable is caused by 3 sources of variance: a term that does not change (trait), a term that changes (state), and a random term (error). It is shown how structural equation modeling can be used to estimate such a model. An extended example is presented in which the correlations between variables are quite different at the trait, state, and error levels.

Humans↗

PubMed1993

A causal model of health status and satisfaction with medical care.

Patients with better health status have often been shown to be more satisfied with their medical care, but the causal factors in this relation have not been determined. In this study, a longitudinal assessment of these two constructs was undertaken in which older patients in a health maintenance organization were interviewed at baseline (N = 590) and again 1 year later (N = 526) about their health status and satisfaction with their medical care. Structural equation modeling using LISREL procedures revealed that the predominant direction of causation went from earlier self-perceived overall health and functional ability to later levels of satisfaction. There was no evidence for causal paths going from satisfaction to later health. In addition, a test of spuriousness indicated that for self-perceived overall health, the significant longitudinal path was unlikely to be explained by unmeasured confounding variables.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMed2006

The specificity of cognitive vulnerabilities to emotional disorders: anxiety sensitivity, looming vulnerability and explanatory style.

Mood and anxiety disorders share considerable phenomenological and diagnostic overlap. Several models have advanced the understanding of the phenomenological overlap of anxiety and depression; however, identification of disorder-specific etiological mechanisms remains elusive. Recently, research has advanced several cognitive vulnerability-stress models proposing that one's characteristic way of attending to, interpreting, and remembering negative events contributes vulnerability to psychopathology. These cognitive vulnerabilities may elucidate specific etiological mechanisms that distinguish mood and anxiety pathology. The present study examines the specificity of three cognitive vulnerability constructs, the looming cognitive style, anxiety sensitivity, and explanatory style, in the prediction of latent anxiety disorder symptoms and latent depression symptoms. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that the looming cognitive style demonstrated specificity predicting only anxiety disorder symptoms whereas anxiety sensitivity and a pessimistic explanatory style predicted both anxiety disorder and mood disorder symptoms. Implications for future research are discussed.

Adolescent↗