Citation

Lim S, Powell TW, Xue QL, Towe VL, Taylor RB, Ellen JM, Sherman SG. J. Health Psychol. 2018; ePub(ePub): 1359105318769349.

Affiliation

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1359105318769349

PMID

29637800

Abstract

Generalized perceived powerlessness is an important psychosocial construct that determines a wide range of health behaviors and outcomes. This study has two aims: (1) examine the structure of the newly developed perceived powerlessness scale using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and (2) assess the scale's invariance across key demographic variables using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis among a random household sample of African American and White youth (aged 15-24 years) residing in Baltimore, MD. Our study results demonstrated that the powerlessness scale is valid among a demographically diverse sample of urban youth, showing promise for use in future health behavior and outcome studies.

Language: en

Keywords

adolescence; perceived control; race; validation; youth