A comparison of World Wide Web and paper-and-pencil mental health scales

The purpose of this study was to compare data collected via online surveys to via paper-and-pencil ones in mental health fields. Two groups of participants completed the Adult Adaptation Inventory (AAI) and Self-rating depression scale (SDS) either in online format or in paper-and-pencil format independently. Data collected via paper-and-pencil surveys had more missing data than Internet-based ones. As for internal consistency, there were no significant differences in AAI between both two groups, while internal consistency of SDS in the online format was much higher than in the paper-and-pencil format. There was measurement invariance of both two scales across the two conditions. Finally, there were no significant differences in mean scores of both two scales between both two formats. The basic similarity of the properties across the two conditions suggests the viability of the Internet-based surveys for assessing mental health status of adults.