A comparison of German questionnaires measuring Sense of Coherence

Background: Research suggests that Sense of Coherence (SoC) positively affects quality of life and health. It consists of three theoretically derived dimensions: comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. Our goal is to compare different German-language SoC-measures and to test their psychometric properties, particularly regarding their factorial validity. Methods: We measured SoC by the German version of the Life-Orientation-Scale (SOC-29, Antonovsky; short version: SOC-13) and more recent scales (SOC-HD, Schmidt-Rathjens et al.; SOC-B, Born et al.). Reliability and factorial structure were analyzed in a sample of 635 participants. Structures within the data were explored by confirmatory factor analysis using maximum-likelihood estimation. Results: The total scores of all four questionnaires had high internal consistencies (SOC-29: Cronbach’s α = .90; SOC-13: α =.85; SOC-HD: α = .88; SOC-B: α = .91), but for none of them the postulated factorial structure could be replicated. All tested models didn’t reach acceptable fit indices. Discussion: The results indicate that all four questionnaires don’t reproduce the theoretical structure of the construct. There seems to be evidence for a lack of differentiation between the dimensions “comprehensibility” and “manageability”.