The Psychometric Properties of the World Health Organization Quality of Life-Bref Questionnaire in College Students.

Abstract

Background and purpose: Because there are conflicting perspectives on the factor structure of the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) Questionnaire among college students, we evaluated the psychometric properties of the instrument in a sample of US college students. Methods: We conducted secondary analysis of data collected from 1,138 undergraduate students from a large metropolitan university in the southeastern United States. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis did not support the original four-factor structure. Based on exploratory factor analysis, three factors were retained and rotated using Varimax rotation, which accounted for 96% of the item variance. Cronbach's alphas for the factors were: social/psychological health 0.84; physical health 0.81; and environment 0.77. Sexual minorities had significantly lower scores on all factors than those who identified as heterosexuals. Conclusions: In this sample of college students, the WHOQOL-BREF was three-dimensional, and a significant amount of the item variance was explained. Lower quality of life scores of nonWhites and sexual minority college students point to a critical need that should be addressed.