Measurement Invariance of FFWEL Scores of Helping Professionals by Sex and Race across U.S. and Filipino Samples

Objective: This study explored the structure validity and sex and country measurement invariance for Filipino and U.S. adults using the Five Factor Wellness Inventory (FFWEL-A2). Method: Confirmatory factor analysis and measurement invariance were conducted to determine consistency of responses across sex and country categories. Factorial ANOVAs were used to determine differences by sex, race, and country. Results: The hypothesized 5-factor and second-order factor structure of the FFWEL provided equivalent but poor to adequate fit to the data in a large sample (N = 2,071) of U.S. and a smaller sample (N = 269) of Filipino counselors and counselors-in-training. Coefficients [alpha] were >0.80 for almost all domain scores, but only five of the 17 facet scores met the 0.80 criterion. Weak measurement invariance was evident for men (n = 502) and women (N = 1838) across both the U.S. White and Filipino group comparisons. Conclusions: Counselors should take care to explore the way they and clients understand wellness and consider that not everyone will have the same understanding of the individual factors as outlined in the FFWEL-A2, especially among male, female, and diverse people from different countries. Significance statement: Wellness is an ethical and professional imperative for counselors to avoid professional impairment and burn out. In this study, scores on the FFWEL-A2, a prominent measure of wellness, displayed partially biased measures of male and female scores across U.S. and Filipino samples and across diverse racial groups, probably due to complexity of the wellness model.