Evaluating the Orbach Mikulincer Mental Pain Scale among Late Adolescent and Early Adult African Americans: A Rasch Analysis.

Although there are only a few psychometric investigations of mental pain measurement in the literature, there are no previous evaluations of mental pain scales among African Americans. The present study examined the Rasch measurement properties of the nine subscales contained in the Orbach-Mikulincer Mental Pain (OMMP) Scale among a sample of older adolescent and young adult African Americans. Results from the analyses suggest that three of the OMMP subscales meet the requirements of the Rasch model and hold promise for use in research and applied settings. Implications for further development and use of the remaining subscales are discussed.