How to Create a New Mental Health Scale Using NHIS 02 (02/17/09)

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There are endless possibilities of scales you can create for analyzing data in NHIS 02.  We have listed two examples here using items related to adult and child mental health..

A 6 item Adult Mental Health Scale

• Before creating a new scale, specify all the missing values on the “Variable View” page for each of the items you will use in the new scale.
• This new scale will combine 6 mental health questions from the Sam Adult file of the NHIS 02 to create a new measure of mental health functioning.

ADMHS6 = sad+ nervous+ restless+ hopeless+ effort+ wortls.

• For consistency of meaning in this new scale, low scores should always represent poor mental functioning and high scores should always represent good mental functioning.
• Before combing items, make sure each of the items to be combined is scaled correctly, such that a low scores means poor mental functioning and a high score mean good mental functioning.
  • Click on variable view. 
  • Click on values to ensure that the items are scaled correctly.

• Checking these items shows that all are 5 point scales with “1” indicating poor mental functioning and “5” indicates high mental functioning.  Creating the combined scale, the scores can range from a minimum of 5 to a maximum of 25.

• If  an item is not in the correct format, write down on note paper, the old values and how they show be transformed into new values.  Now click on

          Transform, then click Recode.

• After you click Recode, then click on Into Different Variables. Click on the old variable as “input variable.” In the “Output variable box on the right side under Name, enter a brief new name for the recoded variable (Suggestion: add an “r” to the end of the input name to indicate a recode.) Next to “label” create a brief description of the variable. Click on change.
• Click on Old and New Values.

• Referring to your note paper, in the old value box enter the first number on the scale; then enter the new value. The click on Add. Continue for each old and new value, and Add each. A four-alternative item should look like this

                                                         Then click Continue.

• Once the individual items are all consistently scaled, e.g., low score = poor mental functioning; high= good functioning,  then click on Transform. New variable names should appear at bottom of your variable list.
• Then click Compute, then enter in the name of the new variable (e.g. ADMHS6) you wish to

create by combining the 6 items under target variables.

• After you select the target name

          Click each item followed by (+) place item onto the numeric expression box.  

 For example, sad+nervous+restless+hopelss+effort+worls, than press okay. 

The new variable should appear at the bottom of your list of variable on “variable view.”

• Save the data file so you do not have to create the new variables again.
• Copy  the Compute formula from the Output page, and Save as a word document in H Drive for future reference, so you can remember how your created the new variable.
   
•  

Child Mental Health Scale (02/17/09)

You can create any number of scales using questions from the NHIS 02.This Child Mental Health Scale will consist of a scale of 6 items from the Sam Child File of NHIS 02. Before starting, specify missing values.

CMHS6 = generally well behaved + had worries + often unhappy + gets along better w/adults +has good attention span + difficulties with emotions

• We will create this scale so that Low scores= poor functioning; High scores = good functioning. 

•         Click on variable view. 
• Click on values to ensure that the items are scaled correctly. You can make notes on paper for later reference for recoding each question.
• You will find that cmhmf12 (well behaved) and cmhmf16 (good attention) are scaled correctly, but the other 4 items (cmhmf13-has worries; cmhmf14-often unhappy; cmhmf15-gets along better with adults; cmhdiff-difficult emotions) need to be recoded to reverse the scoring ). All of these variable have 3 point scales, except cmfdiff-difficult emotions which has 4 points.
• With this combined mental health scale, the minimum score will be 6, indicating low mental health functioning and the maximum score will be 19, indicating very good mental health functioning.)
• If the Items are not in the correct format click on

          Transform then click Recode.

• After you click Recode click on Into Different Variables.
• Click on the variable you wish to recode as the Input Variable. Then enter the name for the new “Output” Variable in the box on the right. (Suggestion:  add an “r” for recode to the end of the input variable name to create the new recoded output variable name). Enter a label. Click on Change.
• Click on Old and New Values, then click Add for each entry

• In the old value box enter the first number on the scale than in the new value box place the last number of the scale. A 4 item scale should look like  

                                                           Then click Continue.

The new variable name should appear at the bottom of your variable list.

Make sure to enter the appropriate missing values for each item.,

• Once all the items of the mental health scale have been recoded correctly,
• Then click Transform, then compute, then enter in the name of the new variable (CMHS6) you wish to create in target variable.
• Then click each item followed by (+) place item onto the numeric expression box

For example, cmhmf12+ cmhmf13+cmhmf14+cmhmf15+cmhmf16+cmfdiff, then press OK.

• Save the data file so you do not have to create these variables again.
• Copy the Compute formula for the new variable from the output page  and save as a word file in your H drive  for future reference, so you can recall how you created the new variable.

The new variable name should appear at the bottom of the list of variables on the “Variable View.”

You are now ready to use the mental health scale for data analyses such as means, t test and correlations.

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