Validation of Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) in a population of people using Secondary Care Mental Health Services

Abstract

Background: The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) is a relatively new measure and to date has been validated in a number of populations, including student, general and adolescent samples across the UK. There is increasing interest in measuring the mental well-being of users of secondary care mental health services and therefore it is apt to validate WEMWBS for this population.Aims: To investigate the validity of WEMWBS in a secondary care mental health service user population.Method: Data was collected from two NHS Trusts and one charity. Analyses are based on 1180 completed WEMWBS.Results: WEMWBS scores for this population are significantly lower than those in a general population (Mean 34.9, SD 13.8). Overall the data analyses supported the use of WEMWBS in this population sample. The Rasch analysis found that the majority of the items can be seen as measuring one dimension. The confirmatory factor analysis supports a one factor solution and thus, measures a single underlying concept.Conclusions: The findings from this study show WEMWBS to be a valid and reliable measure for this population sample.