Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T08:06:04.927Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Positive Mental Well-being in Australian Adolescents: Evaluating the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

Simon C. Hunter Open the ORCID record for Simon C. Hunter [Opens in a new window] ,
Stephen Houghton  and
Lisa Wood
Simon C. Hunter*
Affiliation:
School of Psychological Sciences and Health, University of Strathclyde, GlasgowUK; Honorary Research Fellow, Graduate School of Education, The University of WesternAustralia
Stephen Houghton
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Education, The University of WesternAustralia
Lisa Wood
Affiliation:
Centre for the Built Environment and Health, The University of WesternAustralia
*
Address for correspondence: Dr Simon C. Hunter, School of Psychological Sciences and Health, 40 George Street, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. Email: simon.hunter@strath.ac.uk
Get access

Abstract

While there is increasing recognition of the need to go beyond measures of mental ill health, there is a relative dearth of validated tools for assessing mental well-being among adolescents. The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) is a promising tool for use in this context, and this study evaluated its use in an Australian context. The WEMWBS was completed by 829 Western Australian adolescents, aged from 13 to 16 years old, drawn from Grades 8, 9 and 10 in seven separate high schools. Using confirmatory factor analytic techniques, the utility of the full 14-item scale was not supported, but good fit for a previously validated seven-item short version (SWEMWBS) was supported. Strong measurement invariance was demonstrated across age, and weak measurement invariance was demonstrated across gender. The scale has good internal reliability. There were no differences in SWEMWBS scores across Grades 8 to 10. Overall, the SWEMWBS represents a useful tool for educational, developmental, and school psychologists investigating positive mental wellbeing in younger adolescents.

Keywords

wellbeingWEMWBSadolescence
Type
Articles
Information
The Educational and Developmental Psychologist , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , December 2015 , pp. 93 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © Australian Psychological Society Ltd 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2008). An introduction to socio-economic indexes for areas (SEIFA), 2006. Canberra, Australia: Author.Google Scholar
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2012). ABS 3303.0. Causes of Death, Australia, 2010. Canberra, Australia: Author.Google Scholar
Bartram, D.J., Sinclair, J.M., & Baldwin, D.S. (2012). Further validation of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) in the UK veterinary profession: Rasch analysis. Quality of Life Research, 22, 379–391.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Call, K., Riedel, A.A., Hein, K., McLoyd, V., Petersen, A., & Kipke, M. (2002). Adolescent health and well-being in the twenty first century: A global perspective. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 12, 69–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carmines, E.G., & McIver, J.P. (1981). Analyzing models with unobserved variables: Analysis of covariance structures. In Bohrstedt, G.W. & Borgatta, E.F. (Eds.), Social measurement: Current issues (pp. 65–115). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Clarke, A., Friede, T., Putz, R., Ashdown, J., Martin, S., Blake, A., . . . Platt, S. (2011). Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): Validated for teenage school students in England and Scotland. A mixed methods assessment. BMC Public Health, 11, 487.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davoren, M.P., Fitzgerald, E., Shiely, F., & Perry, I.J. (2013). Positive mental health and well-being among a third level student population. PLoS One, 8, e74921.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dobia, B., & O'Rourke, V.G. (2011). Promoting the mental health and wellbeing of Indigenous children in Australian primary schools. Canberra, Australia: Commonwealth of Australia.Google Scholar
Dolan, P., Layard, R., & Metcalf, R. (2011). Measuring subjective well-being for public policy. London: Office for National Statistics Report.Google Scholar
Essau, C.A., Sasagawa, S., & Frick, P.J. (2006). Callous-unemotional traits in a community sample of adolescents. Assessment, 13, 454–469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, T., Goodman, R., & Meltzer, H. (2003). The British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Survey 1999: The prevalence of DSM-IV disorders. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 42, 1203–1211.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frick, P.J., Barry, C.T., & Kamphaus, R.W. (2009). Clinical assessment of child and adolescent personality and behaviour (3rd ed.). New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Gargiulo, R.A., & Stokes, M.A. (2009). Subjective well-being as an indicator for clinical depression. Social Indicators Research, 92, 517–527.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gremigni, P., & Stewart-Brown, S. L. (2011). Measuring mental well-being: Italian validation of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS). Giornale Italiano di Psicologia, 2, 485–508.Google Scholar
Heneghan, A., Stein, R., Hurlburt, M.S., Zhang, J., Rolls-Reutz, J., Fisher, E., Landsverk, J., & Horwitz, S. (2013). Mental health problems in teens investigated by U.S. child welfare agencies. Journal of Adolescent Health, 52, 634–640.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heckman, J.J. (2012). The developmental origins of health. Health Economics, 21, 24–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hu, Y., Stewart-Brown, S., Twigg, L., & Weich, S. (2007). Can the 12-item General Health Questionnaire be used to measure positive mental health? Psychological Medicine, 37, 1005–1013.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jacka, F.N., Reavley, N.J., Jorm, A.F., Toumboiurou, J., Lewis, A.J., & Berk, M. (2013). Prevention of common mental disorders: What can we learn from those who have gone before and where do we go next? Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 47, 920–929.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keith, T.Z. (2006). Multiple regression and beyond. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kessler, R., Avenevoli, S., Costello, E.J., Georgiades, K., Green, J., Gruber, M.J., . . . Merikangas, K.R. (2012). Prevalence, persistence, and sociodemographic correlates of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement. Archives of General Psychiatry, 69, 372–380.Google ScholarPubMed
Keyes, C.L. (2007). Promoting and protecting mental health as flourishing: A complementary strategy for improving national mental health. American Psychologist, 62, 95–108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keyes, C.L., Dhingra, S.S., & Simoes, E.J. (2010). Change in levels of positive mental health as a predictor of future risk of mental illness. American Journal of Public Health, 100, 2366–2371.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Linley, P.A., & Joseph, S. (2004). Positive psychology in practice. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Little, T.D., Card, N.A., Slegers, D.W., & Ledford, E.C. (2007). Representing contextual effects in multiple-group MACS models. In Little, T., Bovaird, J.A., & Card, N.A. (Eds.), Modeling contextual effects in longitudinal studies (pp. 121–147). Mahwah, NJ: LEA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, K., & Devine, P. (2012). Psychometric properties of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) in Northern Ireland. Journal of Mental Health, 21, 257–263.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
López, M., Gabilondo, A., Codony, M., García-Forero, C., Vilagut, G., Castellví, P., . . . Alonso, J. (2013). Adaptation into Spanish of the Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) and preliminary validation in a student sample. Quality of Life Research, 22, 1099–1104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maheswaran, H., Weich, S., Powell, J., & Stewart-Brown, S. (2012). Evaluating the responsiveness of the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS): Group and individual level analysis. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 10, 156.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perry, G., Presley-Cantrell, L., & Dhingra, S. (2010). Addressing mental health promotion in chronic disease prevention and health promotion. American Journal of Public Health, 100, 2337–2339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Quine, S., Bernard, D., Booth, M., Kang, M., Usherwood, T., Alperstein, G., & Bennett, D. (2003). Health and access issues among Australian adolescents: A rural-urban comparison. Rural and Remote Health, 3, 245.Google ScholarPubMed
Rasch, G. (1960). Probabilistic models for some intelligence and attainment tests. Copenhagen: Danish Institute for Educational Research.Google Scholar
Rasch, G. (1980). Probabilistic models for some intelligence and attainment tests (Expanded). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ryan, R.M., & Deci, E.L. (2001). On happiness and human potentials: A review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 141–166.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scott, M. (2011). Report of the Inquiry Into the Mental Health and Wellbeing of Children and Young People in Western Australia. Perth, Australia: Commissioner for Children and Young People.Google Scholar
Stewart-Brown, S.L., Platt, S., Tennant, A., Maheswaran, H., Parkinson, J., Weich, S., . . . & Clarke, A. (2011). The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): A valid and reliable tool for measuring mental well-being in diverse populations and projects. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 65 (Suppl. 2), A38–A39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart-Brown, S., Tennant, A., Tennant, R., Platt, S., Parkinson, J., & Weich, S. (2009). Internal construct validity of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): A Rasch analysis using data from the Scottish Health Education Population Survey. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 7, 15–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tennant, R., Hiller, L., Fishwick, R., Platt, S., Joseph, S., Weich, S., . . . Stewart-Brown, S. (2007). The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): development and UK validation. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 5, 63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tennant, R., Joseph, S., & Stewart-Brown, S. (2007). The Affectometer 2: A measure of positive mental health in UK populations. Quality Life Research, 16, 687–695.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vaingankar, J.A., Subramaniam, M., Chong, S. A., Abdin, E., Edelen, M.O., Picco, L., . . . Sherbourne, C. (2011). The positive mental health instrument: development and validation of a culturally relevant scale in a multi-ethnic Asian population. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 9, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, A.D., Li, Z., & Zumbo, B.D. (2007). Decoding the meaning of factorial invariance and updating the practice of multi-group confirmatory factor analysis: A demonstration with TIMSS data. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 12, 1–26.Google Scholar