Objective  To revise the Mental Vulnerability Questionnaire (MVQ)-Chinese version and to test its validity and reliability in community adults.

  Methods  First, we developed a MVQ-Chinese version (MVQ-C) by translating the MVQ-English version into Chinese and retranslating it back into English and performing a pretest on the MVQ-C among 100 community adults. Then, we selected 4 523 adults (≥ 18 years) selected from 48 communities in 6 cities across Shandong province with stratified multistage random sampling and conducted a self-administered anonymous survey to test the validity and reliability of the revised MVQ-C using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, content validity index, and internal consistency coefficient. The Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), 12-Item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), and Hardiness Scale were adopted in the survey to evaluate the criterion validity of the MVQ-C. Two weeks after the survey, we carried out a reassessment in 478 adults randomly selected from the participants of the previous test.

  Results  The mean age of the participants was 42 ± 15 years. The average overall MVQ-C score was 2.41 ± 0.57 and the average domain scores were 2.09 ± 0.61 for mental vulnerability, 2.48 ± 0.62 for psychosomatic symptoms, and 2.65 ± 0.67 for interpersonal problems, respectively. For the 18 items of the revised MVQ-C, the exploratory factor analysis extracted 3 components explaining 61.13% of the total variance. The factor loading of the items ranged between 0.54 and 0.79. The confirmatory factor analysis verified a 3-factors model (χ²/df = 2.58, normed fit index NFI = 0.90, root mean square error of approximation RMSEA= 0.06, goodness-of-fit index GFI = 0.92, adjusted goodness of fit index AGFI = 0.86, comparative fit index CFI= 0.93, Tucker-Lewis index TLI = 0.92, incremental fit index IFI = 0.93, root mean square residual RMR= 0.05). Criterion validity results showed that the overall score and domain scores of the MVQ-C were positively correlated with the scores of SDS, SAS, GHQ-12 (r = 0.28 – 0.55, all P < 0.01), and were negatively correlated with the score of Hardiness Scale (r = – 0.21 – – 0.31, all P < 0.01). The Cronbach′s α coefficients for overall and domain scores of the MVQ-C ranged 0.84 – 0.92 and the test-retest reliability coefficients were between 0.71 – 0.85.

  Conclusion  The revised Mental Vulnerability Questionnaire-Chinese version is of good validity and reliability and could be used in assessment of mental vulnerability among community adults in China.