Problems with Centrality Measures in Psychopathology Symptom Networks: Why Network Psychometrics Cannot Escape Psychometric Theory.

ABSTRACT: Understanding patterns of symptom co-occurrence is one of the most difficult challenges in psychopathology research. Do symptoms co-occur because of a latent factor, or might they directly and causally influence one another? Motivated by such questions, there has been a surge of interest in network analyses that emphasize the putatively direct role symptoms play in influencing each other. In this critical paper, we highlight conceptual and statistical problems with using centrality measures in cross-sectional networks. In particular, common network analyses assume that there are no unmodeled latent variables that confound symptom co-occurrence. The traditions of clinical taxonomy and test development in psychometric theory, however, greatly increase the possibility that latent variables ex

SUBMITTER: Hallquist MN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7012663 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar-Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature