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Construction and validation of the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire
Personality and Individual Differences 30 (2001) 11±19
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Construction and validation of the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire Margot J. Verschuur *, Elisabeth H.M. Eurelings-Bontekoe, Philip Spinhoven Department of Psychology, Division of Clinical and Health Psychology, Leiden University, PO Box 9555, 2300 RB, Leiden, The Netherlands Received 5 May 1999; received in revised form 16 November 1999; accepted 21 January 2000
Abstract This study describes the ®nal steps in the construction of a questionnaire to assess the vulnerability to develop homesickness. The psychometric properties of the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire (HVQ) were assessed by comparing two samples: a random sample from the Dutch population (N=485) and a combined sample consisting of several groups of subjects that have been used in former studies on the HVQ (N=862). The discriminative power of the various subscales resulting from con®rmatory factor analyses was tested by comparing the subscale-scores of subjects suering from severe homesickness, depression but not homesickness and healthy controls for both samples separately. The subscales ``Earlier homesickness experiences'' and ``Expression of emotions/seeking social support'' appeared to discriminate best between these three groups in both populations and hence appear to be characteristic of homesickness. The rigidity subscale had additional dierentiating power only in the combined sample. The reliability of all subscales in both populations was reasonable to good, as well as the test±retest stability as assessed in the population sample. It is concluded that the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire seems to be an adequate instrument for dierentiating between homesick, depressive and healthy control subjects. # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Leaving one's home environment, voluntarily or not, looking for better opportunities, escaping from an unsafe environment or just having a holiday can all lead to severe forms of homesickness. Why do some people develop homesickness and others, in similar circumstances, do not? Personality factors such as rigidity, (sub)assertiveness and dependency, amongst others, may constitute a risk to develop homesickness. It seems also reasonable to assume that personality may indirectly * Corresponding author. Tel.: +31-71-5273734; fax: +31-71-5273619. E-mail address: [email protected] (M.J. Verschuur). 0191-8869/00/$ - see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0191-8869(00)00005-2
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M. J. Verschuur et al. / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 11±19
in¯uence the vulnerability to develop homesickness and adaptation diculties, by virtue of its in¯uence on the capacity to obtain and pro®t from social support. This capacity is probably related to stable personality characteristics such as introversion±extraversion (Eurelings-Bontekoe, 1997). When the most important vulnerability factors are known, it will be possible to screen people in advance before sending them abroad or allowing them to move to another country. The main aim of this study was to construct the ®nal version of the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire. The preliminary versions were constructed using rather speci®c populations such as military conscripts and females only (Eurelings-Bontekoe, Vingerhoets & Fontijn, 1994; EurelingsBontekoe, Verschuur, Koudstaal, Van der Sar & Duijsens, 1995; Eurelings-Bontekoe, Tolsma, Verschuur & Vingerhoets, 1996), so results might have been biased. Therefore it was decided to use also (in addition to the earlier now combined populations) a random sample from the Dutch population. The main issue to be addressed is whether the results obtained among the former, more speci®c populations are comparable to those found among a random sample of the population. 2. Methods 2.1. Subjects The psychometric properties of the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire (HVQ) were investigated by comparing two samples. The ®rst population consisted of a large sample of the Dutch population. Participants were recruited by telephone. They were randomly selected from the telephone directory, but strati®ed for urbanity. A total of 617 adults was recruited, 79% of the questionnaires were returned (N=485). More females (N=276; 57%) than males (N=209; 43%) participated. Age had a normal distribution, ranging from 17 to 90, with a mean of 45.5 and a SD of 15.2. Seventy-three percent of the respondents were married or cohabiting. The educational level of the group was low in 34% of the cases, average in 38% of the cases and high in 28% of the cases, and as such slightly higher than that of the general Dutch population. A number of these persons (N=278) took part in a test±retest study, in order to investigate the test± retest stability of the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire (response rate: 86%). In addition to the above sample, a second population was used consisting of subjects that have been used in former studies on the HVQ: military conscripts, females, primary mental health care patients, students and Italian immigrants (N=862). Also in this sample more females (N=507; 59%) than males (N=354; 41%) participated. Age ranged from 17 to 80 years, with a mean of 32 and a SD of 13.5. The considerable dierence in age with the population study can be explained by the large amount of military conscripts (N=201; 23%) and students (N=205; 24%) in the combined sample. In earlier versions of the HVQ marital status was not asked for, so this variable was missing for a large part of this sample (35%). The educational level was low in 28% of the cases, average in 47% of the cases and high in 24%, which is comparable to the population study. 2.2. Instruments The preliminary questionnaire consisted of all the items from the following selected seven subscales: rigidity, dominance, expression of emotions/seeking social support, distancing, frequency
M. J. Verschuur et al. / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 11±19
13
of seeking attention for one's opinion (assertiveness), extraversion and earlier homesickness experiences (Eurelings-Bontekoe et al., 1995). To identify the presence of homesickness a nine-item decision tree was used, a questionnaire covering cognitive ruminations about and longing for the former homesituation and symptoms of a depressive episode according to DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). A subject was considered to suer from severe homesickness if (a) there was cognitive activity centring around the former homesituation, (b) there was a loss of interest or a depressed mood and (c) at least three out of six symptoms of a depressive episode were endorsed. If the subject only endorsed the depression items (b) and (c), but not the item on cognitive ruminations about home (a), the subject was considered to suer from depression, but not from homesickness. 3. Results 3.1. Factor analyses On the basis of the exploratory principal components analyses (PCAs) the appropriateness of a seven-factor solution was indicated by the scree-test as well as by the criterion of interpretability for both the combined and the population sample. The seven factors accounted for 32.26% of the total variance in the combined sample and 31.70% of the total variance in the population sample. Subsequent multiple group method analyses revealed that in comparison to the exploratory seven-factor PCAs, the a priori matrix with seven components resulted in a loss of only 2.29% and 2.38% of explained variance in the combined and the population sample respectively. These seven components consisted of the selected six original subscales and one constructed subscale covering earlier homesickness experiences. The correlations of the items with the component of whose group the item was supposed to be a member were almost always >0.25. The correlation with the own component was almost always minimally 0.15 higher than the correlations with the other components, except for item 6. This item (going out to discos and bars) showed in both samples a higher correlation with the extraversion component, than with the component it was supposed to belong to (earlier homesickness experiences) and was subsequently removed from this subscale. In both samples there was a signi®cant correlation between assertiveness and dominance (r=0.49 for the combined and r=0.44 for the population sample). In the combined population extraversion and dominance were also signi®cantly correlated (r=0.45). While the population sample did not show a signi®cant association between earlier homesickness experiences and any other subscale, in the combined sample earlier homesickness experiences were in particular signi®cantly correlated with rigidity (r=0.41). 3.2. Internal consistency After recoding some items because of reverse scoring with regard to the other items in the same subscale, Cronbach's alpha's were calculated in both samples for the subscales formed on the basis of the con®rmatory factor analysis. Table 1 shows the results of these analyses. Since the internal consistency considerably improved after removing item 3 (going on holidays without
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M. J. Verschuur et al. / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 11±19
Table 1 Cronbach's alpha's HVQ subscales for the combined and the population sample Subscale
Items
Combined sample
Population sample
Homesickness Assertiveness Extraversion Rigidity Dominance Distancing Expression of emotions
5 6 13 25 17 11 8
0.76 0.75 0.77 0.81 0.78 0.76 0.71
0.62 0.76 0.74 0.79 0.74 0.80 0.73
parents even before the age of 18) from the homesickness subscale, it was decided to leave this item out of the subscale. The most striking dierence between the two samples was the much lower alpha for the homesickness subscale in the population sample. This was probably due to the fact that the subscale variance was much lower in the population sample than in the combined sample. The alpha's for the other subscales were in general reasonable to good and the reliability ®gures of the two samples were quite comparable to each other. 3.3. Test±retest stability In order to investigate the test±retest stability paired t-tests and correlations between the ®rst and the second measurements were calculated for the population sample. Of the persons that took part in the test±retest study 238 completed the second Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire (86%). There was an interval of approximately three months between the ®rst and second measurement. The results are shown in Table 2. All subscales except the expression of emotions subscale, show high temporal stability, both groupwise (t-tests) as well as on the individual level (correlations). The mean score on the expression of emotions subscale was signi®cantly lower on the second measurement as compared to the ®rst p < 0:001: However, the correlation was considerably high, implying that individuals scoring high on the ®rst measurement remain high-scoring on the second measurement. Table 2 Test±retest results for the population sample (N=238)a Subscale
Time 1, Mean (SD)
Time 2, Mean (SD)
T-value
Correlation
Homesickness Assertiveness Extraversion Rigidity Dominance Distancing Expression of emotions
9.48 19.32 28.74 51.84 33.34 36.61 29.12
9.42 19.05 28.39 51.96 33.03 35.90 27.86
0.54 1.63 1.57 ÿ0.35 1.40 1.63 4.69
0.81 0.71 0.81 0.81 0.87 0.65 0.79
a
Signi®cance level T-test
(2.8) (3.4) (5.1) (8.3) (6.5) (8.2) (6.4)
p<0.001.
(2.8) (3.2) (5.6) (8.5) (6.7) (7.1) (5.8)
M. J. Verschuur et al. / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 11±19
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3.4. Between group dierences For both samples the dierences in scoring on the several HVQ subscales between subjects suering from severe homesickness (HS), depression, but not homesickness (DEP) and healthy controls (HC) were studied, using one-way analyses of variance with ScheeÂ's post hoc test for multiple comparisons p < 0:05: The results of these analyses are summarised in Table 3. The combined sample consisted of 209 respondents in the HS group, 131 in the DEP group and 512 HC respondents. In the population sample, N was 29 for the HS group, 50 for the DEP group and 403 for the HC respondents. Before the mean sumscores were calculated the items were, if necessary, recoded in such a way that a high score on a subscale means that the respondent manifests the variable to a high extent. Moreover, item 1 (thinking of home when away from home) which was scaled on a ®ve-point scale, was recoded into a three-point scale to match with the other items in the homesickness subscale. Since the assumption of homogeneity of variances was violated in both samples, additional non-parametric tests were performed. The Kruskal± Wallis tests for all three groups as well as several Mann±Whitney tests comparing two groups revealed exactly the same signi®cant results. Consequently, only the results of the parametric analyses will be reported.
Table 3 Analyses of variance of HVQ subscales comparing three groups from two samplesa HVQ subscales
Homesickness Combined Population Assertiveness Combined Population Extraversion Combined Population Rigidity Combined Population Dominance Combined Population Distancing Combined Population Expression of emotions Combined Population a
Group
F-value
Sign. ScheeÂ
1>2, 1>3 1>3
(1) HS Mean (Sd)
(2) DEP Mean (Sd)
12.17 (2.6) 11.37 (2.6)
10.10 (3.0) 10.09 (2.6)
9.58 (3.2) 9.07 (2.7)
51.70 11.49
18.09 (4.2) 19.59 (4.0)
18.65 (3.7) 17.88 (4.0)
18.99 (3.3) 18.99 (3.5)
4.46 2.59
26.71 (5.9) 28.64 (4.8)
27.74 (6.5) 26.42 (5.8)
30.00 (5.6) 28.75 (5.4)
25.48 3.78
1<3, 2<3 2<3
54.92 (8.1) 54.92 (6.4)
50.00 (9.3) 53.64 (10.0)
49.77 (9.2) 52.34 (8.3)
23.72 1.51
1>2, 1>3
29.96 (7.5) 32.81 (6.4)
31.59 (7.1) 32.33 (6.1)
33.34 (6.5) 33.10 (6.2)
17.72 0.33
1<3, 2<3
34.47 (8.5) 35.45 (10.1)
33.88 (8.2) 37.34 (7.8)
36.14 (7.5) 37.24 (7.8)
5.82 0.70
1<3, 2<3
30.43 (6.1) 32.22 (5.7)
28.73 (6.4) 27.98 (5.7)
30.47 (6.0) 28.87 (6.1)
4.41 4.54
1>2, 2<3 1>2, 1>3
Signi®cance level p<0.05; p<0.01;
p<0.001.
(3) HC Mean (Sd)
1<3
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M. J. Verschuur et al. / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 11±19
In the combined sample the homesick diered from both the depressives and the healthy controls on the subscales earlier homesickness experiences and rigidity. So among the combined population earlier homesickness experiences and a high level of rigidity appeared to be typical of the homesick. However, in the population sample only a relatively higher level of expressing one's feelings/seeking social support was found to be typical of the homesick. In the combined sample, a low level of extraversion, dominance and distancing appeared to be typical of depressive symptomatology in general (including homesickness), since the scores of both problematic groups on these subscales did not dier from each other, but did dier from the scores of the healthy control group. Interestingly, in the population sample the level of extraversion in the homesickness group was equally as high as in the healthy control group, only the depressive group scored lower on extraversion than the healthy control group. Comparing the results of the combined and the population sample, similar dierences between groups were found only on the homesickness subscale, the extraversion subscale and the expression of emotions subscale. The homesick subjects had more earlier homesickness experiences than the healthy controls and tended to express their emotions and seek social support more than the depressive subjects, whereas the depressive group was less extraverted than the healthy controls. To examine whether the dierences in results were due to dierences in age between the two samples (the combined sample being younger) several secondary analyses were performed. Age correlated with most of the subscales, but the explained variance was never more than 10% in both samples. In addition, there were no signi®cant dierences in age between the groups in both samples. A second confounding variable might have been sex. Although the overall percentages of females and males were quite similar in both samples, homesick males were over-represented in the combined sample only (35% homesick males vs 17% homesick females). In the combined sample no dierences were found between males and females regarding assertiveness, dominance and earlier homesickness experiences. However, in the population sample males appeared to be more assertive, more dominant and to have had less earlier homesickness experiences than females, regardless of group. So the population sample showed the stereotypical dierences between males and females, whereas in the combined sample the males scored more like the females on the several personality variables. Chi-square analyses revealed that in the population sample there were no signi®cant groupdierences in educational level. However, it appeared that in the combined sample the lower educated were over-represented in the homesick group. 3.5. Discriminative power Subsequent stepwise logistic regression analyses were performed to investigate the contribution of personality variables to the development of homesickness over and above the contribution of earlier homesickness experiences. The results of these analyses for the homesick and healthy control groups are shown in Table 4. This analysis showed that in the combined sample a low level of extraversion as well as a high level of rigidity and expression of emotions had signi®cant independent contributions to the prediction of homesickness, over and above earlier homesickness experiences. In the population sample earlier homesickness experiences was the only predictor of actual homesickness, whereas
M. J. Verschuur et al. / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 11±19
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Table 4 Logistic regression analyses predicting group membership of HS and HC groups Subscale Combined sample Homesickness Extraversion Rigidity Expr. of emotions Population sample Homesickness
B
SE
Sig.
ÿ0.23 0.07 ÿ0.03 ÿ0.04
0.04 0.02 0.01 0.02
0.00 0.00 0.02 0.04
ÿ0.36
0.09
0.00
the personality variables did not have any additional predictive value. For both samples with this limited model the total percentage correct classi®cation was still 69%. The results of the logistic regression analyses dierentiating between the homesick and depressive groups are shown in Table 5. In the combined sample, comparing homesick and depressive groups, a high level of expression of emotions and rigidity contributed signi®cantly to the prediction of homesickness over and above earlier homesickness experiences. In the population sample only expression of emotions played an important additional predictive role. The overall percentage of correctly classi®ed cases was 69% for the combined sample, and 72% for the population sample. So, in concordance with the analyses of variance, earlier homesickness experiences and a high level of rigidity appeared to be typical of homesickness. This however only holds for the combined population. In addition, in both samples a high level of expressing feelings/seeking social support dierentiated homesickness from depression. 4. Discussion The purpose of this study was to construct the ®nal version of the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire. This was done by using and comparing two dierent samples. We can conclude that we developed an instrument that seems to be quite adequate in dierentiating between homesick, depressive and healthy control subjects. The main question to be explained is why Table 5 Logistic regression analyses predicting group membership of HS and DEP groups Subscale Combined sample Homesickness Expr. of emotions Rigidity Population sample Homesickness Expr. of emotions
B
SE
Sig.
ÿ0.22 ÿ0.06 ÿ0.04
0.05 0.02 0.02
0.00 0.01 0.03
ÿ0.27 ÿ0.12
0.13 0.05
0.04 0.01
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M. J. Verschuur et al. / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 11±19
personality variables played a much greater, dierentiating role in the combined sample than in the population sample. This was not the result of dierences in sex or age between the two samples. A large part of the combined sample consists of persons having sought psychological help for their problems, which may have overemphasised the role of the personality variables. The combined sample consisted of several groups of subjects used in previous studies and recruited just because of their relatively high risk of developing homesickness. It is interesting to note that among these biased and `at-risk' groups personality variables, particularly rigidity, contribute to homesickness over and above earlier homesickness experiences, in contrast to the random population sample, where personality variables appeared to play almost no role. An alternative explanation of the role of rigidity in the combined population may be the following. From a large Dutch population study (Luteijn, Starren & Van Dijk, 1985) it is known that in general persons with a high education are less rigid than those less well educated. So, the ®nding that rigidity plays a role in predicting homesickness only among the combined sample may be explained by the fact that in the combined sample subjects with a lower educational level were over-represented among the homesick group. A large part of this homesick group consisted of young soldiers and almost half of them had a low level of education while this was the case in only 28% of the total combined sample. This alternative explanation would imply that the role of rigidity in homesickness is perhaps less important than we previously assumed on the basis of our studies among military conscripts. However, it has been possible to detect two homesickness-speci®c vulnerability factors, common to both samples. In addition to earlier homesickness experiences, homesick subjects can be dierentiated from depressives by a high level of expression of emotions and seeking social support. The role of seeking social support in homesickness has been described earlier by EurelingsBontekoe et al. (1994) in a study on homesick military conscripts. Homesick conscripts were characterised by a strong tendency to seek social support. This ®nding is also in accordance with ®ndings of van Tilburg, Eurelings-Bontekoe, Landman, Verschuur and Vingerhoets (submitted), who showed that homesick people use more active coping and seek social support more, hence are less passive than previously has been assumed. Also, depressed subjects from the population sample were less extraverted than both homesick people as well as healthy controls. In other words, homesick people might externalise their feelings more, whereas depressed people might tend more to internalise their feelings. The results of several studies suggest that a low score on extraversion predicts a higher vulnerability for depression (e.g. Hirschfeld, Klerman & Clayton, 1983). So the next step in our research will be to explore possible relations between homesickness and externalising vs internalising of emotions, especially anger, which is assumed to play a role, both in depression and in homesickness (Eurelings-Bontekoe, 1997). Since the present study was cross-sectional, nothing can be said about the predictive value of these vulnerability factors in the development of homesickness. Future research will address this issue by assessing the predictive validity of the HVQ by means of a prospective follow-up study among a population of ®rst year students who all left home at the start of their study. References American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. DSM-IV. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
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Eurelings-Bontekoe, E. H. M. (1997). Homesickness, personality and personality disorders: an overview and therapeutic considerations. In M. A. L. Van Tilburg, & A. J. J. M. Vingerhoets, Psychological aspects of geographical moves: Homesickness and acculturation stress (pp. 197±212). Tilburg: Tilburg University Press. Eurelings-Bontekoe, E. H. M., Vingerhoets, A., & Fontijn, T. (1994). Personality and behavioral antecedents of homesickness. Personality and Individual Dierences, 16, 229±235. Eurelings-Bontekoe, E. H. M., Verschuur, M., Koudstaal, A., Van der Sar, S., & Duijsens, I. J. (1995). Construction of a homesickness-questionnaire: preliminary results. Personality and Individual Dierences, 19, 319±325. Eurelings-Bontekoe, E. H. M., Tolsma, A., Verschuur, M. J., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (1996). Construction of a homesickness questionnaire using a female population with two types of self-reported homesickness. Preliminary results. Personality and Individual Dierences, 20, 415±421. Hirschfeld, R. M. A., Klerman, G. L., & Clayton, P. J. (1983). Personality and depression; empirical ®ndings. Archives of General Psychiatry, 40(9), 993±998. Luteijn, F., Starren, J., & Van Dijk, H. (1985). Handleiding Nederlandse persoonlijkheidsvragenlijst. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger. Van Tilburg, M. A. L., Eurelings-Bontekoe, E. H. M., Landman, C. A. M., Verschuur, M. J., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (Submitted). Conceptual analysis of homesickness: a study on personal meanings
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Construction and validation of the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire Margot J. Verschuur *, Elisabeth H.M. Eurelings-Bontekoe, Philip Spinhoven Department of Psychology, Division of Clinical and Health Psychology, Leiden University, PO Box 9555, 2300 RB, Leiden, The Netherlands Received 5 May 1999; received in revised form 16 November 1999; accepted 21 January 2000
Abstract This study describes the ®nal steps in the construction of a questionnaire to assess the vulnerability to develop homesickness. The psychometric properties of the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire (HVQ) were assessed by comparing two samples: a random sample from the Dutch population (N=485) and a combined sample consisting of several groups of subjects that have been used in former studies on the HVQ (N=862). The discriminative power of the various subscales resulting from con®rmatory factor analyses was tested by comparing the subscale-scores of subjects suering from severe homesickness, depression but not homesickness and healthy controls for both samples separately. The subscales ``Earlier homesickness experiences'' and ``Expression of emotions/seeking social support'' appeared to discriminate best between these three groups in both populations and hence appear to be characteristic of homesickness. The rigidity subscale had additional dierentiating power only in the combined sample. The reliability of all subscales in both populations was reasonable to good, as well as the test±retest stability as assessed in the population sample. It is concluded that the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire seems to be an adequate instrument for dierentiating between homesick, depressive and healthy control subjects. # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Leaving one's home environment, voluntarily or not, looking for better opportunities, escaping from an unsafe environment or just having a holiday can all lead to severe forms of homesickness. Why do some people develop homesickness and others, in similar circumstances, do not? Personality factors such as rigidity, (sub)assertiveness and dependency, amongst others, may constitute a risk to develop homesickness. It seems also reasonable to assume that personality may indirectly * Corresponding author. Tel.: +31-71-5273734; fax: +31-71-5273619. E-mail address: [email protected] (M.J. Verschuur). 0191-8869/00/$ - see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0191-8869(00)00005-2
12
M. J. Verschuur et al. / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 11±19
in¯uence the vulnerability to develop homesickness and adaptation diculties, by virtue of its in¯uence on the capacity to obtain and pro®t from social support. This capacity is probably related to stable personality characteristics such as introversion±extraversion (Eurelings-Bontekoe, 1997). When the most important vulnerability factors are known, it will be possible to screen people in advance before sending them abroad or allowing them to move to another country. The main aim of this study was to construct the ®nal version of the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire. The preliminary versions were constructed using rather speci®c populations such as military conscripts and females only (Eurelings-Bontekoe, Vingerhoets & Fontijn, 1994; EurelingsBontekoe, Verschuur, Koudstaal, Van der Sar & Duijsens, 1995; Eurelings-Bontekoe, Tolsma, Verschuur & Vingerhoets, 1996), so results might have been biased. Therefore it was decided to use also (in addition to the earlier now combined populations) a random sample from the Dutch population. The main issue to be addressed is whether the results obtained among the former, more speci®c populations are comparable to those found among a random sample of the population. 2. Methods 2.1. Subjects The psychometric properties of the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire (HVQ) were investigated by comparing two samples. The ®rst population consisted of a large sample of the Dutch population. Participants were recruited by telephone. They were randomly selected from the telephone directory, but strati®ed for urbanity. A total of 617 adults was recruited, 79% of the questionnaires were returned (N=485). More females (N=276; 57%) than males (N=209; 43%) participated. Age had a normal distribution, ranging from 17 to 90, with a mean of 45.5 and a SD of 15.2. Seventy-three percent of the respondents were married or cohabiting. The educational level of the group was low in 34% of the cases, average in 38% of the cases and high in 28% of the cases, and as such slightly higher than that of the general Dutch population. A number of these persons (N=278) took part in a test±retest study, in order to investigate the test± retest stability of the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire (response rate: 86%). In addition to the above sample, a second population was used consisting of subjects that have been used in former studies on the HVQ: military conscripts, females, primary mental health care patients, students and Italian immigrants (N=862). Also in this sample more females (N=507; 59%) than males (N=354; 41%) participated. Age ranged from 17 to 80 years, with a mean of 32 and a SD of 13.5. The considerable dierence in age with the population study can be explained by the large amount of military conscripts (N=201; 23%) and students (N=205; 24%) in the combined sample. In earlier versions of the HVQ marital status was not asked for, so this variable was missing for a large part of this sample (35%). The educational level was low in 28% of the cases, average in 47% of the cases and high in 24%, which is comparable to the population study. 2.2. Instruments The preliminary questionnaire consisted of all the items from the following selected seven subscales: rigidity, dominance, expression of emotions/seeking social support, distancing, frequency
M. J. Verschuur et al. / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 11±19
13
of seeking attention for one's opinion (assertiveness), extraversion and earlier homesickness experiences (Eurelings-Bontekoe et al., 1995). To identify the presence of homesickness a nine-item decision tree was used, a questionnaire covering cognitive ruminations about and longing for the former homesituation and symptoms of a depressive episode according to DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). A subject was considered to suer from severe homesickness if (a) there was cognitive activity centring around the former homesituation, (b) there was a loss of interest or a depressed mood and (c) at least three out of six symptoms of a depressive episode were endorsed. If the subject only endorsed the depression items (b) and (c), but not the item on cognitive ruminations about home (a), the subject was considered to suer from depression, but not from homesickness. 3. Results 3.1. Factor analyses On the basis of the exploratory principal components analyses (PCAs) the appropriateness of a seven-factor solution was indicated by the scree-test as well as by the criterion of interpretability for both the combined and the population sample. The seven factors accounted for 32.26% of the total variance in the combined sample and 31.70% of the total variance in the population sample. Subsequent multiple group method analyses revealed that in comparison to the exploratory seven-factor PCAs, the a priori matrix with seven components resulted in a loss of only 2.29% and 2.38% of explained variance in the combined and the population sample respectively. These seven components consisted of the selected six original subscales and one constructed subscale covering earlier homesickness experiences. The correlations of the items with the component of whose group the item was supposed to be a member were almost always >0.25. The correlation with the own component was almost always minimally 0.15 higher than the correlations with the other components, except for item 6. This item (going out to discos and bars) showed in both samples a higher correlation with the extraversion component, than with the component it was supposed to belong to (earlier homesickness experiences) and was subsequently removed from this subscale. In both samples there was a signi®cant correlation between assertiveness and dominance (r=0.49 for the combined and r=0.44 for the population sample). In the combined population extraversion and dominance were also signi®cantly correlated (r=0.45). While the population sample did not show a signi®cant association between earlier homesickness experiences and any other subscale, in the combined sample earlier homesickness experiences were in particular signi®cantly correlated with rigidity (r=0.41). 3.2. Internal consistency After recoding some items because of reverse scoring with regard to the other items in the same subscale, Cronbach's alpha's were calculated in both samples for the subscales formed on the basis of the con®rmatory factor analysis. Table 1 shows the results of these analyses. Since the internal consistency considerably improved after removing item 3 (going on holidays without
14
M. J. Verschuur et al. / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 11±19
Table 1 Cronbach's alpha's HVQ subscales for the combined and the population sample Subscale
Items
Combined sample
Population sample
Homesickness Assertiveness Extraversion Rigidity Dominance Distancing Expression of emotions
5 6 13 25 17 11 8
0.76 0.75 0.77 0.81 0.78 0.76 0.71
0.62 0.76 0.74 0.79 0.74 0.80 0.73
parents even before the age of 18) from the homesickness subscale, it was decided to leave this item out of the subscale. The most striking dierence between the two samples was the much lower alpha for the homesickness subscale in the population sample. This was probably due to the fact that the subscale variance was much lower in the population sample than in the combined sample. The alpha's for the other subscales were in general reasonable to good and the reliability ®gures of the two samples were quite comparable to each other. 3.3. Test±retest stability In order to investigate the test±retest stability paired t-tests and correlations between the ®rst and the second measurements were calculated for the population sample. Of the persons that took part in the test±retest study 238 completed the second Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire (86%). There was an interval of approximately three months between the ®rst and second measurement. The results are shown in Table 2. All subscales except the expression of emotions subscale, show high temporal stability, both groupwise (t-tests) as well as on the individual level (correlations). The mean score on the expression of emotions subscale was signi®cantly lower on the second measurement as compared to the ®rst p < 0:001: However, the correlation was considerably high, implying that individuals scoring high on the ®rst measurement remain high-scoring on the second measurement. Table 2 Test±retest results for the population sample (N=238)a Subscale
Time 1, Mean (SD)
Time 2, Mean (SD)
T-value
Correlation
Homesickness Assertiveness Extraversion Rigidity Dominance Distancing Expression of emotions
9.48 19.32 28.74 51.84 33.34 36.61 29.12
9.42 19.05 28.39 51.96 33.03 35.90 27.86
0.54 1.63 1.57 ÿ0.35 1.40 1.63 4.69
0.81 0.71 0.81 0.81 0.87 0.65 0.79
a
Signi®cance level T-test
(2.8) (3.4) (5.1) (8.3) (6.5) (8.2) (6.4)
p<0.001.
(2.8) (3.2) (5.6) (8.5) (6.7) (7.1) (5.8)
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15
3.4. Between group dierences For both samples the dierences in scoring on the several HVQ subscales between subjects suering from severe homesickness (HS), depression, but not homesickness (DEP) and healthy controls (HC) were studied, using one-way analyses of variance with ScheeÂ's post hoc test for multiple comparisons p < 0:05: The results of these analyses are summarised in Table 3. The combined sample consisted of 209 respondents in the HS group, 131 in the DEP group and 512 HC respondents. In the population sample, N was 29 for the HS group, 50 for the DEP group and 403 for the HC respondents. Before the mean sumscores were calculated the items were, if necessary, recoded in such a way that a high score on a subscale means that the respondent manifests the variable to a high extent. Moreover, item 1 (thinking of home when away from home) which was scaled on a ®ve-point scale, was recoded into a three-point scale to match with the other items in the homesickness subscale. Since the assumption of homogeneity of variances was violated in both samples, additional non-parametric tests were performed. The Kruskal± Wallis tests for all three groups as well as several Mann±Whitney tests comparing two groups revealed exactly the same signi®cant results. Consequently, only the results of the parametric analyses will be reported.
Table 3 Analyses of variance of HVQ subscales comparing three groups from two samplesa HVQ subscales
Homesickness Combined Population Assertiveness Combined Population Extraversion Combined Population Rigidity Combined Population Dominance Combined Population Distancing Combined Population Expression of emotions Combined Population a
Group
F-value
Sign. ScheeÂ
1>2, 1>3 1>3
(1) HS Mean (Sd)
(2) DEP Mean (Sd)
12.17 (2.6) 11.37 (2.6)
10.10 (3.0) 10.09 (2.6)
9.58 (3.2) 9.07 (2.7)
51.70 11.49
18.09 (4.2) 19.59 (4.0)
18.65 (3.7) 17.88 (4.0)
18.99 (3.3) 18.99 (3.5)
4.46 2.59
26.71 (5.9) 28.64 (4.8)
27.74 (6.5) 26.42 (5.8)
30.00 (5.6) 28.75 (5.4)
25.48 3.78
1<3, 2<3 2<3
54.92 (8.1) 54.92 (6.4)
50.00 (9.3) 53.64 (10.0)
49.77 (9.2) 52.34 (8.3)
23.72 1.51
1>2, 1>3
29.96 (7.5) 32.81 (6.4)
31.59 (7.1) 32.33 (6.1)
33.34 (6.5) 33.10 (6.2)
17.72 0.33
1<3, 2<3
34.47 (8.5) 35.45 (10.1)
33.88 (8.2) 37.34 (7.8)
36.14 (7.5) 37.24 (7.8)
5.82 0.70
1<3, 2<3
30.43 (6.1) 32.22 (5.7)
28.73 (6.4) 27.98 (5.7)
30.47 (6.0) 28.87 (6.1)
4.41 4.54
1>2, 2<3 1>2, 1>3
Signi®cance level p<0.05; p<0.01;
p<0.001.
(3) HC Mean (Sd)
1<3
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M. J. Verschuur et al. / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 11±19
In the combined sample the homesick diered from both the depressives and the healthy controls on the subscales earlier homesickness experiences and rigidity. So among the combined population earlier homesickness experiences and a high level of rigidity appeared to be typical of the homesick. However, in the population sample only a relatively higher level of expressing one's feelings/seeking social support was found to be typical of the homesick. In the combined sample, a low level of extraversion, dominance and distancing appeared to be typical of depressive symptomatology in general (including homesickness), since the scores of both problematic groups on these subscales did not dier from each other, but did dier from the scores of the healthy control group. Interestingly, in the population sample the level of extraversion in the homesickness group was equally as high as in the healthy control group, only the depressive group scored lower on extraversion than the healthy control group. Comparing the results of the combined and the population sample, similar dierences between groups were found only on the homesickness subscale, the extraversion subscale and the expression of emotions subscale. The homesick subjects had more earlier homesickness experiences than the healthy controls and tended to express their emotions and seek social support more than the depressive subjects, whereas the depressive group was less extraverted than the healthy controls. To examine whether the dierences in results were due to dierences in age between the two samples (the combined sample being younger) several secondary analyses were performed. Age correlated with most of the subscales, but the explained variance was never more than 10% in both samples. In addition, there were no signi®cant dierences in age between the groups in both samples. A second confounding variable might have been sex. Although the overall percentages of females and males were quite similar in both samples, homesick males were over-represented in the combined sample only (35% homesick males vs 17% homesick females). In the combined sample no dierences were found between males and females regarding assertiveness, dominance and earlier homesickness experiences. However, in the population sample males appeared to be more assertive, more dominant and to have had less earlier homesickness experiences than females, regardless of group. So the population sample showed the stereotypical dierences between males and females, whereas in the combined sample the males scored more like the females on the several personality variables. Chi-square analyses revealed that in the population sample there were no signi®cant groupdierences in educational level. However, it appeared that in the combined sample the lower educated were over-represented in the homesick group. 3.5. Discriminative power Subsequent stepwise logistic regression analyses were performed to investigate the contribution of personality variables to the development of homesickness over and above the contribution of earlier homesickness experiences. The results of these analyses for the homesick and healthy control groups are shown in Table 4. This analysis showed that in the combined sample a low level of extraversion as well as a high level of rigidity and expression of emotions had signi®cant independent contributions to the prediction of homesickness, over and above earlier homesickness experiences. In the population sample earlier homesickness experiences was the only predictor of actual homesickness, whereas
M. J. Verschuur et al. / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 11±19
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Table 4 Logistic regression analyses predicting group membership of HS and HC groups Subscale Combined sample Homesickness Extraversion Rigidity Expr. of emotions Population sample Homesickness
B
SE
Sig.
ÿ0.23 0.07 ÿ0.03 ÿ0.04
0.04 0.02 0.01 0.02
0.00 0.00 0.02 0.04
ÿ0.36
0.09
0.00
the personality variables did not have any additional predictive value. For both samples with this limited model the total percentage correct classi®cation was still 69%. The results of the logistic regression analyses dierentiating between the homesick and depressive groups are shown in Table 5. In the combined sample, comparing homesick and depressive groups, a high level of expression of emotions and rigidity contributed signi®cantly to the prediction of homesickness over and above earlier homesickness experiences. In the population sample only expression of emotions played an important additional predictive role. The overall percentage of correctly classi®ed cases was 69% for the combined sample, and 72% for the population sample. So, in concordance with the analyses of variance, earlier homesickness experiences and a high level of rigidity appeared to be typical of homesickness. This however only holds for the combined population. In addition, in both samples a high level of expressing feelings/seeking social support dierentiated homesickness from depression. 4. Discussion The purpose of this study was to construct the ®nal version of the Homesickness Vulnerability Questionnaire. This was done by using and comparing two dierent samples. We can conclude that we developed an instrument that seems to be quite adequate in dierentiating between homesick, depressive and healthy control subjects. The main question to be explained is why Table 5 Logistic regression analyses predicting group membership of HS and DEP groups Subscale Combined sample Homesickness Expr. of emotions Rigidity Population sample Homesickness Expr. of emotions
B
SE
Sig.
ÿ0.22 ÿ0.06 ÿ0.04
0.05 0.02 0.02
0.00 0.01 0.03
ÿ0.27 ÿ0.12
0.13 0.05
0.04 0.01
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M. J. Verschuur et al. / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 11±19
personality variables played a much greater, dierentiating role in the combined sample than in the population sample. This was not the result of dierences in sex or age between the two samples. A large part of the combined sample consists of persons having sought psychological help for their problems, which may have overemphasised the role of the personality variables. The combined sample consisted of several groups of subjects used in previous studies and recruited just because of their relatively high risk of developing homesickness. It is interesting to note that among these biased and `at-risk' groups personality variables, particularly rigidity, contribute to homesickness over and above earlier homesickness experiences, in contrast to the random population sample, where personality variables appeared to play almost no role. An alternative explanation of the role of rigidity in the combined population may be the following. From a large Dutch population study (Luteijn, Starren & Van Dijk, 1985) it is known that in general persons with a high education are less rigid than those less well educated. So, the ®nding that rigidity plays a role in predicting homesickness only among the combined sample may be explained by the fact that in the combined sample subjects with a lower educational level were over-represented among the homesick group. A large part of this homesick group consisted of young soldiers and almost half of them had a low level of education while this was the case in only 28% of the total combined sample. This alternative explanation would imply that the role of rigidity in homesickness is perhaps less important than we previously assumed on the basis of our studies among military conscripts. However, it has been possible to detect two homesickness-speci®c vulnerability factors, common to both samples. In addition to earlier homesickness experiences, homesick subjects can be dierentiated from depressives by a high level of expression of emotions and seeking social support. The role of seeking social support in homesickness has been described earlier by EurelingsBontekoe et al. (1994) in a study on homesick military conscripts. Homesick conscripts were characterised by a strong tendency to seek social support. This ®nding is also in accordance with ®ndings of van Tilburg, Eurelings-Bontekoe, Landman, Verschuur and Vingerhoets (submitted), who showed that homesick people use more active coping and seek social support more, hence are less passive than previously has been assumed. Also, depressed subjects from the population sample were less extraverted than both homesick people as well as healthy controls. In other words, homesick people might externalise their feelings more, whereas depressed people might tend more to internalise their feelings. The results of several studies suggest that a low score on extraversion predicts a higher vulnerability for depression (e.g. Hirschfeld, Klerman & Clayton, 1983). So the next step in our research will be to explore possible relations between homesickness and externalising vs internalising of emotions, especially anger, which is assumed to play a role, both in depression and in homesickness (Eurelings-Bontekoe, 1997). Since the present study was cross-sectional, nothing can be said about the predictive value of these vulnerability factors in the development of homesickness. Future research will address this issue by assessing the predictive validity of the HVQ by means of a prospective follow-up study among a population of ®rst year students who all left home at the start of their study. References American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. DSM-IV. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
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Eurelings-Bontekoe, E. H. M. (1997). Homesickness, personality and personality disorders: an overview and therapeutic considerations. In M. A. L. Van Tilburg, & A. J. J. M. Vingerhoets, Psychological aspects of geographical moves: Homesickness and acculturation stress (pp. 197±212). Tilburg: Tilburg University Press. Eurelings-Bontekoe, E. H. M., Vingerhoets, A., & Fontijn, T. (1994). Personality and behavioral antecedents of homesickness. Personality and Individual Dierences, 16, 229±235. Eurelings-Bontekoe, E. H. M., Verschuur, M., Koudstaal, A., Van der Sar, S., & Duijsens, I. J. (1995). Construction of a homesickness-questionnaire: preliminary results. Personality and Individual Dierences, 19, 319±325. Eurelings-Bontekoe, E. H. M., Tolsma, A., Verschuur, M. J., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (1996). Construction of a homesickness questionnaire using a female population with two types of self-reported homesickness. Preliminary results. Personality and Individual Dierences, 20, 415±421. Hirschfeld, R. M. A., Klerman, G. L., & Clayton, P. J. (1983). Personality and depression; empirical ®ndings. Archives of General Psychiatry, 40(9), 993±998. Luteijn, F., Starren, J., & Van Dijk, H. (1985). Handleiding Nederlandse persoonlijkheidsvragenlijst. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger. Van Tilburg, M. A. L., Eurelings-Bontekoe, E. H. M., Landman, C. A. M., Verschuur, M. J., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (Submitted). Conceptual analysis of homesickness: a study on personal meanings