The Italian version of the attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help scale – short form: The first contribution to measurement invariance

Despite an intensive worldwide use across heterogeneous populations, only few studies have assessed the factorial validity of the Attitudes toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale – Short Form (ATSPPHS-SF) and none of them has explored its measurement invariance (MI). The present study aims to: extend evidence of ATSPPHS-SF factorial validity by assessing the Italian version; compare literature-based models and examine MI across predictors of seeking psychological help (SPH). Participants (N = 320) completed the Italian ATSPPHS-SF. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed good fit indices for a two-factor solution and a significant decrease in model fit was found for all of the competing models. The Italian ATSPPHS-SF revealed good reliability in each scale and for the multidimensional factor. Finally, configural, metric, and scalar invariance was achieved across predictors of SPH. Findings suggest that the Italian ATSPPHS-SF can be considered a reliable, good psychometrically-based, and structurally invariant instrument for the assessment of SPH attitudes.