Dimensionality of the Spanish Version of the Universal Mental Health Literacy Scale Among Colombian Adults

The Universal Mental Health Literacy Scale for Adolescents (UMHL-A) is a new 17-item tool designed to assess adolescents' mental health attitudes and knowledge. This scale can also be adapted for adults and is known as the UMHL. This study evaluated the dimensionality of the UMHL among Colombian adult high school students. A validation study involved 378 students aged 18-70 years (M = 20.06 and SD = 4.67), with 51.32% of the participants being female. The authors performed confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) to compute loadings and goodness-of-fit statistics. Moreover, Kuder and Richardson's Formula 20 was calculated for dichotomous items, and Cronbach's alpha was calculated for Likert items to assess the internal consistency of each dimension. The CFA presented two subscales for the UMHL: attitudes and knowledge. Within the attitudes subscale, two dimensions were observed: help-seeking and stigma/discrimination; this solution showed adequate goodness-of-fit indicators (X ²  = 16.93, df = 14, p = 0.26, normalized X ²  = 1.21, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.07 (90% confidence interval [90% CI]: 0.00-0.16), Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.98, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = 0.96, and normalized mean square residual (SRMR) = 0.05), while the knowledge subscale comprised a single dimension, similarly with acceptable goodness-of-fit coefficients (X ²  = 26.08, df = 22, p = 0.25, normalized X ²  = 1.19, RMSEA = 0.06 (90% CI: 0.00-0.14), CFI = 0.96, TLI = 0.94, and SRMR = 0.09). The internal consistency of help-seeking dimension was appropriate (Cronbach's alpha of 0.70), of stigma/discrimination dimension exhibited was low (Cronbach's alpha of 0.45) and of knowledge dimension was acceptable (Kuder-Richardson's Formula 20 of 0.68). In summary, the UMHL shows acceptable dimensionality; however, the stigma/discrimination aspect requires further examination. Additional studies are warranted.