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Measuring structural model invariance across internet-recruited and hospital-recruited IBD patients: Experiential avoidance’s effect on psychopathological symptoms

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Abstract

Research has questioned whether it is feasible to assess psychosocial variables through web-based recruitment methods. Previous literature on IBD focused exclusively on testing differences on psychosocial scores and did not test the invariance between types of recruitment on the relationships between variables. The aim of the present study is thus to analyse structural invariance between internet-recruited and hospital-recruited groups of IBD patients on a mediation model with theoretical basis on previous studies (experiential avoidance as possible mediator of the association between IBD symptomatology and psychopathology). The internet sample included 137 IBD patients recruited through a patients association, and the hospital sample comprised 66 IBD patients. Structural equation modelling was used; a multiple-group comparison was conducted to examine model invariance between samples. Although the internet sample presented higher levels of experiential avoidance and psychopathological symptoms compared to the hospital sample, the relationships between these variables were invariant across groups. Experiential avoidance partially mediated the impact of IBD symptomatology on levels of stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms in a similar way for online respondents and hospital-recruited patients. This is a new finding that argues for the validity of web-based research methods.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Portuguese Association for IBD (Associação Portuguesa para a Doença Inflamatória do Intestino; APDI) for the help provided during the recruitment of the internet sample.

Funding

This research was supported by the first author (Inês A Trindade), Ph.D. Grant (SFRH/BD/101906/2014) sponsored by FCT (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CINEICC – Cognitive and Behavioural Centre for Research and Intervention, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Inês A. Trindade, Cláudia Ferreira & José Pinto-Gouveia

  2. Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City, NY, USA

    Laurie Keefer

  3. Gastroenterology Service of the Coimbra University Hospital (Centro Hospitalar Universitário de Coimbra), Coimbra, Portugal

    Francisco Portela

Authors
  1. Inês A. Trindade
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  2. Laurie Keefer
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  4. Cláudia Ferreira
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  5. José Pinto-Gouveia
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Contributions

I.A.T.: study design, data analysis, writing up of the first draft of the paper. L.F.: writing and revision of the paper. F.P.: patient recruitment, data collection. C.F.: writing and revision of the paper. J.P.G: revision of the paper. All authors provided critical feedback.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Inês A. Trindade.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

This study was approved by the Ethics Committees of the Coimbra University Hospital (Centro Hospitalar Universitário de Coimbra) and the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Coimbra.

Informed Consent

All procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients that participated in the study.

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Trindade, I.A., Keefer, L., Portela, F. et al. Measuring structural model invariance across internet-recruited and hospital-recruited IBD patients: Experiential avoidance’s effect on psychopathological symptoms. Curr Psychol 40, 3459–3466 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00281-2

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