Feeling loved, a novel self-report health measure: convergent and discriminant validity

Abstract

Background: There is very little research regarding the sense of feeling loved or loving oneself, or how this might relate to other measures of mental and physical health. Methods: We created a self-report instrument with two Yes/No questions (Do you feel loved? Do you love yourself?) and two corresponding 0 to 100mm visual analogue scales assessing “How loved do you feel?†and “How much do you love yourself?†Concurrent comparators include general mental and physical health (SF12), social support (SPS), stress (PSS10), depression (PHQ9), mindful awareness (MAAS) and positive and negative emotion (PANAS). Results: Some n=412 adults completed instruments. Most respondents felt loved, with 59% of people self-rating ≥75/100 on both 0-to-100 VAS scales, and 28% rating ≥90/100. Supporting convergent validity, statistically significant (p<0.0001) Spearman’s rho=Ï correlations of the summed Feeling Loved score were found with: SF12 mental health (Ï= 0.492); SPS (Ï= 0.470); PSS10 (Ï= -0.470), PHQ9 (Ï= -0.316), MAAS (Ï= 0.364) and both positive (Ï= 0.502) and negative (Ï= -0.429) emotion. Supporting discriminant validity, Feeling Loved scores were correlated with but distinct from all psychosocial comparators, and were not associated with gender, age, body mass index, socioeconomic status, self-reported physical health, or clinical laboratory values (hsCRP; HbA1C). Multivariate latent class analysis models suggested a 3-class structure (low, moderate and high love), with strong goodness-of-fit indicators. Conclusions: The Feeling Loved instrument displays convergent and discriminant validity, and has a coherent 3-class internal structure. Feeling Loved may turn out to be a useful measure for human health studies.