Social support, social strain, loneliness, and well-being among older adults : An analysis of the Health and Retirement Study*

Principles for reporting analyses using structural equation modeling are reviewed, with the goal of supplying readers with complete and accurate information. It is recommended that every report give a detailed justification of the model used, along with plausible alternatives and an account of identifiability. Nonnormality and missing data problems should also be addressed. A complete set of parameters and their standard errors is desirable, and it will often be convenient to supply the correlation matrix and discrepancies, as well as goodness-of-fit indices, so that readers can exercise independent critical judgment. A survey of fairly representative studies compares recent practice with the principles of reporting recommended here.