Abstract
Positive mental health is crucial to individuals' total well-being and especially to their emotional, psychological, and social functioning. To assess the positive aspects of mental health, the Positive Mental Health Scale (PMH-scale) is being used as one of the most significant and practical short unidimensional psychological tools. However, the PMH-scale has not yet been validated for the Bangladeshi population nor has it been translated into Bangla. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Bangla version of PMH-scale and validate it with the Brief Aggression Questionnaire (BAQ) and Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS). The sample of the study consisted of 3145 university students (61.8% men) aged from 17 to 27 (M = 22.07, SD = 1.74) and 298 general population (53.4% men) aged from 30 to 65 (M = 41.05, SD = 7.88) of Bangladesh. The factor structure of the PMH-scale as well as measurement invariance for sex and age (age ≤30 years; age >30 years) were tested, using the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The CFA revealed that the originally proposed unidimensional model of PMH-scale had a good fit in the current sample which confirms factorial validity of the Bangla version of PMH-scale. The value of Cronbach's alpha (for both groups combined α = 0.85; for the student sample α = .85; and for the general sample α = .73) ensured the high internal consistency of the items. Concurrent validity of the PMH-scale was confirmed through the expected correlation with aggression (BAQ) and mood (BRUMS). The PMH-scale was also partially invariant over groups (student, general, men and women) indicating that the PMH-scale is equally applicable to student, general, men and women population. Therefore, this study tells us that the Bangla version of PMH-scale is a quick and easy-to-administer tool for assessing positive mental health in different groups of people in Bangladeshi culture. This work will also be useful for mental health studies in Bangladesh.