Measurement invariances for the MCFA.

Anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure or interest in activities, is a key symptom across various psychiatric disorders, including depression. It links to poor quality of life, higher suicide risk, and poorer prognosis. While anhedonia is often studied in clinical populations, its prevalence in healthy individuals and its dimensional nature remain underexplored. This study examined the prevalence of anhedonia in 128 German university students, comparing those with and without psychiatric symptoms and modeling psychiatric symptoms as predictor of anhedonia, measured with the Dimensional Anhedonia Rating Scale (DARS). Results showed that the clinical group demonstrated relatively low levels of anhedonia (total DARS-26: 85.03 ± 12.88) that did not differ from the healthy group (88.80 ± 7.88). Considerable variability suggests that a purely categorical approach to anhedonia may not capture its full complexity. Multiple regression analyses revealed that negative symptoms (e.g., affective flattening) were the strongest predictor of anhedonia, both in the full (b = −0.54, p p p = .01), underscoring its impact on reward processing. Depression did not emerge as a strong predictor (b = −0.21, p = .49) when considered alongside other variables, indicating that its link to anhedonia may be mediated by other factors. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis of the DARS showed that the 17-item version provided a better fit than the 26-item version, reinforcing the shorter version as a more efficient tool for assessing anhedonia. Taken together, the present findings support the use of a dimensional approach to anhedonia, which offers a more nuanced view of the underlying psychological and neurological mechanisms. Future research should explore anhedonia in larger, diverse samples for a comprehensive understanding of the link between anhedonia and mental illness.Registration: The study was pre-registered on OSF: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/234A7.快感缺失（Anhedonia）指无法从各类活动中体验到愉悦或兴趣，是包括抑郁症在内的多种精神障碍的核心症状。它与生活质量低下、自杀风险升高及预后不良密切相关。尽管快感缺失常被针对临床人群开展研究，但健康个体中的患病率及其维度属性仍未得到充分探索。 本研究纳入128名德国大学生，对快感缺失的患病率进行了考察，对比了存在精神症状与无精神症状的群体，并以维度快感缺失评定量表（Dimensional Anhedonia Rating Scale, DARS）作为测评工具，将精神症状作为快感缺失的预测变量开展建模分析。 结果显示，临床组的快感缺失水平相对较低（DARS-26总分：85.03 ± 12.88），与健康组（88.80 ± 7.88）无显著差异。显著的个体差异提示，仅采用分类学方法研究快感缺失或许无法涵盖其全部复杂性。 多元回归分析表明，阴性症状（如情感平淡）是快感缺失最强的预测因子，在全样本（b = −0.54, p < .001）及排除精神分裂症谱系障碍个体的子样本中（b = −0.53, p = .01）均如此，凸显了其对奖赏加工的影响。当纳入其他变量一同分析时，抑郁症并未成为强有力的预测因子（b = −0.21, p = .49），这表明抑郁症与快感缺失之间的关联或许由其他因素介导。 对DARS的多组验证性因素分析结果显示，17条目版本的拟合效果优于26条目版本，进一步证实短版本量表是评估快感缺失更为高效的工具。 综合来看，本研究结果支持采用维度方法研究快感缺失，该方法能够更细致地揭示其背后的心理与神经机制。未来的研究应在更大规模、多样化的样本中探索快感缺失，以全面理解快感缺失与精神疾病之间的关联。 本研究已在开放科学框架（Open Science Framework, OSF）上预先注册：https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/234A7。