Abstract:

Psychological adjustment is essential for achieving better mental health. There is a scarcity of available measures in assessing the general psychological adjustment. The Brief Psychological Adjustment Scale-6 (BASE-6) is used to assess one’s general psychological distress and adjustment. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to adapt the BASE-6 into Turkish language, to investigate the factor structure and measurement invariance of the scale and to investigate its relationship with mental health. The sample included 154 undergraduate students (66 females and 88 males) aged between 18 and 44 years, with a mean of 21.48 years (SD = 4.03). All participants were asked to complete the BASE-6, Satisfaction with Life Scale and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21. The results showed that confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) demonstrated that the original one-factor structure was confirmed in this sample. The results of a multi-group CFA demonstrated measurement invariance across gender groups. Using Cronbach's alpha (α) and McDonald's omega (ω), internal consistency reliability was found to be good for the general factor. Concerning convergent validity, the Pearson product-moment correlation indicated that the BASE-6 had a significant negative relationship with the satisfaction of life and a positive and significant relationship with depression, anxiety and stress. According to multiple regression analysis, the results demonstrated that the BASE-6 was able to predict a significant amount of variance in satisfaction with life, depression, anxiety and stress. The present findings suggest that researchers and practitioners in Turkey can utilise the BASE-6 to reliably and validly measure psychological adjustment based on an overall score.

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