Hi,

I want to run a mediation analysis looking at the direct and indirect effect of adolescent personality (three separate but related measures of personality) on all-cause mortality in adulthood. I have a range of mediators I want to include, most of which are continuous variables. However, I have several ordered categorical mediators, including highest qualification and self-reported health. I know gsem allows me to run ordered logit models for the effect of personality on these ordered categorical mediators. However, does the command treat them as continuous when mortality is the outcome and they are independent variables? Is it possible to include them as dummy variables when they are acting as independent variables?

Thanks,
Rose