Cited by 120Psychometric Methodologies and TestingEating Disorders and BehaviorsGender Roles and Identity Studies

The Giscombe Superwoman Schema Questionnaire: Psychometric Properties and Associations with Mental Health and Health Behaviors in African American Women

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Woods-Giscombe, Cheryl L., Allen, Amani M., Black, Angela R., Steed, Teneka C., Li, Yin, Lackey, Charity·2019·Issues in Mental Health Nursing

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to examine the psychometric properties of the Giscombe Superwoman Schema Questionnaire. Three separate studies conducted with 739 African American women provided preliminary evidence that the Questionnaire's factor structure aligns with the Superwoman Schema Conceptual Framework and has good reliability. In addition, it is positively associated with perceived stress, depressive symptoms, using food to cope with stress, poor sleep quality, and physical inactivity. This study provides preliminary evidence to suggest that the Giscombe Superwoman Schema Questionnaire is psychometrically sound; Superwoman Schema is associated with health behaviors and psychological states that may increase risk for illness.

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  • Woods-Giscombe et al. (2019) found that all five SWS subscales had the same directional relationships with psychological health outcomes: positive associations with perceived social stress and depressive symptoms and negative associations with poor sleep quality.

    “Woods- Giscombe et al. (2019) found that all five SWS subscales had the same directional relationships with psychological health outcomes: positive associations with perceived social stress and depressive symptoms and negative associations with poor sleep quality.”

    From Superwoman Schema and John Henryism among African American women: An intersectional perspective on coping with racism (2023) · cites this paper as Woods-Giscombe et al. (2019)

    Study III’s Construct validity section reports positive associations of each of the five subscales with depressive symptoms (CES-D) and perceived stress (PSS). It reports negative associations with sleep quality, not with poor sleep quality; the Discussion explicitly describes the association with poor sleep quality as positive. The sleep-direction portion of the claim is therefore incorrect. (LLM, conf=0.90)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • The 35-item Giscombe SWS Questionnaire has been previously validated in a sample of African American women to assess five SWS dimensions.

    “The 35-item Giscombe SWS Questionnaire has been previously validated in a sample of African American women to assess the following five SWS dimensions”
  • One recent study found a positive association between SWS and perceived stress, depressive symptoms, using food to cope with stress, and poor sleep quality.

    “One recent study found a positive association between SWS and perceived stress, depressive symptoms, using food to cope with stress, and poor sleep quality (Allen et al., 2019a(Allen et al., , 2019b;;Woods-Giscombe et al., 2019).”

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Authors
Woods-Giscombe, C. L., Allen, A. M., Black, A. R., Steed, T. C., Li, Y., & Lackey, C.
Affiliations
  • School of Nursing, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA;
  • University of California, Berkeley (US)
  • University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
  • University of North Carolina at Greensboro (US)
  • Emory University (US)
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
Venue
Issues in Mental Health Nursing
Published
2019-05-13
Volume
40
Issue
8
Pages
672-681
ISSN
  • 0161-2840 (ISSN-L)
  • 1096-4673
OpenAlex
W2945353172
Cited by
120
References
62
Citations by year
2026: 17 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 1
FWCI
5.55
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Issues in Mental Health Nursing (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) (submittedVersion)
  • UNC Libraries
Funders
  • National Institute of Nursing Research and the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health (NR03443)
  • National Institute of Nursing Research, National Institutes of Health (T32NR007091)
  • Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Minority Fellowship Program at the American Nurses Association
  • Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholars Program
  • Josiah Macy Foundation
  • University of California, Berkeley (UCB) Hellman Fund
  • USA
  • UCB Population Center, USA
  • UCB Research Bridging Grant, USA
  • UCB Experimental Social Science Laboratory, USA
  • Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program (UCB site), USA
  • UC Center for New Racial Studies, USA
  • UCB Institute for the Study of Societal Issues, USA
  • NIMHD grant (P60MD006902)
  • NIH-funded career development award, Building Interdisciplinary Careers in Women's Health (K12HD055892 NICHD/ORWH/NIH)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender Roles and Identity Studies
Keywords
Superwoman Schema, African American women, psychometric properties, factor structure, perceived stress, depressive symptoms, sleep quality, physical inactivity, health behavior, mental health
MeSH terms
Adaptation, Psychological, Adult, Black or African American, Depression, Female, Humans, Mental Health, Middle Aged, Psychometrics, Surveys and Questionnaires, Sleep, Stress, Psychological, Reproducibility of Results, Health Behavior, Exercise, Focus Groups

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