Measuring Hypochondria with Short Health Anxiety Inventory: Psychometric Properties in Colombian University Students

Abstract

Introduction. The Short Health Anxiety Inventory is a commonly used tool for assessing health anxiety, but its psychometric properties and internal structure have not been examined in a Latin American Spanish-speaking population. This study aimed to establish the psychometric properties among Colombian university students. Method. The goodness of fit of four latent structure models of the Short Health Anxiety Inventory was tested using confirmatory factor analysis in a sample of 1004 Colombian university students. Results. The results show that the original model's structure does not fit well (CFI = .808; RMSEA = .074), and the reliability was .796 and .703 for the original two variables. Conclusions. The findings do not support the utilization of the Colombian version of the Short Health Anxiety Inventory by researchers and clinicians among Colombian university students.