Abstract
BackgroundThe study of well-being is becoming a priority in social sciences. The Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) was developed to assess affective states. The aim of the present study was to validate an abbreviated version of the DRM designed for administration in population studies, and to assess its test-retest properties.Principal Findings1560 adults from Jodhpur (India) were interviewed using an abbreviated version of the DRM, and a week later they were re-interviewed using the original long version of the DRM, after which the abbreviated version of the DRM was compared with the original version. A regression model considering interaction terms was employed to analyse the impact of sociodemographic characteristics on net affect. Test-retest reliability was assessed, and found to be moderate. Positive affect showed more test-retest reliability than negative affect, while net affect had more temporal stability than U-index. The affect of sets A, B, and C, taken together, had a moderate predictive ability compared with the affect obtained using the full version of the DRM: AUC = 0.67 for positive affect; 0.66 for net affect; 0.61 for negative affect; and 0.60 for the U-index. Household income, gender, and setting all had a significant impact on net affect.ConclusionsNet affect and positive affect showed moderate temporal stability, whereas negative affect and the U-index showed fair temporal stability. Evaluating the affective state using the abbreviated version of the DRM provides a profile of the population similar to that of the full version. The results provide considerable support for using the short version of the DRM as an instrument to measure subjective well-being in large population surveys.
Highlights
IntroductionThe Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress recommended that economic measurement systems should shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people’s well-being, and that information on the well-being of the population should be uniformly collected by every government [1]
Well-being is an emergent social and political priority
Evaluating the affective state using the abbreviated version of the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) provides a profile of the population similar to that of the full version
Summary
The Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress recommended that economic measurement systems should shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people’s well-being, and that information on the well-being of the population should be uniformly collected by every government [1]. This will only become possible if more population studies routinely include measurement of individual well-being as a prime objective [2]. The aim of the present study was to validate an abbreviated version of the DRM designed for administration in population studies, and to assess its test-retest properties
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