Factor Structure of the Neurocognitive Tests: An Application of the Confirmative Factor Analysis in Stabilized Schizophrenia Patients

The purpose of the present study was to identify the factor structure of neurocognitive tests used on schizophrenia patients by using the confirmative factor analysis, and to assess the factor score differences of schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. Comprehensive neurocognitive tests were administered to stabilized schizophrenia patients (N=114) and healthy controls (N=120). In the results of factor analyses on patients, the multifactorial-6-factor model, which included the speed of processing, working memory, verbal learning and memory, visual learning and memory, attention/vigilance, and reasoning/problem solving as suggested by the Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (MATRICS), showed the better goodness of fit than any of the other models tested. And assessing the group differences of factor scores, we found the patients performed worse than the controls in all factors, but the result showed meaningful variations of impairments across the cognitive factors. Our study identifies the six major domains with multifactorial structure of cognitive abilities in schizophrenia patients and confirms the distinctive impairment patterns of each cognitive domain. These results may have utility in better understanding the pathology of schizophrenia as well as in genetic studies.

Confirmative factor analysis in the health literacy questionnaire and its applications in Chinese residents / 北京大学学报(医学版)

Objective:To evaluate construct validity of China residents health literacy questionnaire and explore the application of confirmative factor analysis(CFA)in health literacy measurements.Methods:CFA was performed on dimension of basic healthy skills in the questionnaire.Latent variable scores and comprehensive score based on factor variance weight were calculated.Comparison among the latent variable scores,comprehensive scores and proportion of knowing was conducted via GLM or Logistic model.Results:Two factors named general capacity and emergency capacity were well fitted(?2=12.12,P=0.356,IFI=0.998,TLI=0.996,RMSEA=0.007).According to comprehensive score the sample qualification rate of basic health literacy was 38.5%(785/2 040),much similar to 38.2%(780/2 040)which is calculated by original item scores.Latent variable score or comprehensive score has more statistical power than that of proportion of knowing in multivariate analysis.Conclusion:CFA is a useful tool and valuable for applying in the field of health literacy measurement and analysis.