Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Stagnation Scale—A Traditional Chinese Medicine Construct Operationalized for Mental Health Practice

Traditional Chinese medicine stagnation (“yu”) syndrome is characterized by a cluster of mind/body obstruction-like symptoms.
Previous studies have operationalized the concept as a psychological construct through scale development, producing a three-factor
16-item inventory with good psychometric properties.

The study aimed to further validate the Stagnation Scale by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and examine self-appraisal
of stagnation as an illness.

A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted on a random community sample of 755 adults recruited by cluster sampling
in Hong Kong.

CFA revealed a good fit of the three-factor model (CFI = .95; RMSEA = .077; SRMR = .043). ROC analysis suggested a cutoff
score at 50 on stagnation total score for predicting self-appraisal of an illness condition, with false positive and negative
rates at 25.8% and 23.3%, respectively. Overall, 6.2% participants self-appraised to suffer stagnation symptoms to a degree
of an illness, and for it, 1.9% participants intended to seek treatment. Stagnation showed positive correlations with physical
distress, depression, and anxiety (r = .59–.76, p < .01) and negative correlation with age (r = −.22, p < .01).

The Stagnation Scale appeared to be robust in factorial and construct validity. With prevalence of illness by self-appraisal
at 6.2% and intention for treatment at 1.9%, stagnation is a fairly common condition associated with treatment-seeking behaviors.