Inference for Mean Differences for Skewed Responses: Psychological Well-Being in College Students

Thomas M. Menino Convention & Exhibition Center 

The Diener Subjective Psychological Well-Being Scale is commonly used in the social sciences to assess self-perceived psychological flourishing. The scale ranges from 8 to 56, with higher scores indicating greater well-being. The goal of this study was to examine potential differences in mean well-being scores associated with time spent on unpaid caregiving responsibilities among college students in Florida. Prior studies have either used normal approximations for the scale distribution or treated it as a binary outcome. In our study, using the 2025 American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment data, the scale had a left-skewed distribution. Several data transformations and models were explored, and the final model was a generalized linear regression with a Gamma distribution and log link function fitted to the reflected well-being score. The model controlled for students' sociodemographic and academic characteristics. Analyses were performed in SAS® 9.4 software. The model-based confidence interval indicated that the mean well-being score was higher for students who spent more time on caregiving compared with students who spent less time.

Skewed outcomes

Generalized linear model

Gamma regression

Log link

NLMEANS macro 

Mental Health Statistics Section