Abstract
BackgroundThe Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS) is a measure of subjective well-being and assesses eudemonic and hedonic aspects of well-being. However, differential scoring of the WEMWBS across gender and its precision of measurement has not been examined. The present study assesses the psychometric properties of the WEMWBS using measurement invariance (MI) between males and females and item response theory (IRT) analyses.MethodA community sample of 386 adults from the United States of America (USA), United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada were assessed online (N = 394, 54.8% men, 43.1% women, Mage = 27.48, SD = 5.57).ResultsMI analyses observed invariance across males and females at the configural level and metric level but non-invariance at the scalar level. The graded response model (GRM) conducted to observe item properties indicated that all items demonstrated, although variable, sufficient discrimination capacity.ConclusionsGender comparisons based on WEMWBS scores should be cautiously interpreted for specific items that demonstrate different scalar scales and similar scores indicate different severity. The items showed increased reliability for latent levels of ∓ 2 SD from the mean level of SWB. The WEMWBS may also not perform well for clinically low and high levels of SWB. Including assessments for clinical cases may optimise the use of the WEMWBS.
Highlights
To date, there has been considerable attention on the existence of diseases and health-related issues as indices of health status, centring mostly on illness and pathology [62]
Gender comparisons based on Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS) scores should be cautiously interpreted for specific items that demonstrate different scalar scales and similar scores indicate different severity
Including assessments for clinical cases may optimise the use of the WEMWBS
Summary
There has been considerable attention on the existence of diseases and health-related issues as indices of health status, centring mostly on illness and pathology [62]. The construct of SWB has three distinctive features: It is intrinsic within one’s experience; SWB comprises positive measures––it is not merely the absence of Marmara et al BMC Psychology (2022) 10:31 negative aspects; SWB measures typically include a holistic assessment of all aspects of a person’s life [13, 22]. Research has shown that men have significantly greater levels of SWB (i.e., [3, 32, 71]). Several studies have found no significant differences in men and women regarding SWB, even after controlling for some demographic factors (i.e., marital status, age, etc.) (i.e., [37, 44, 66, 80, 83]). The present study assesses the psychometric properties of the WEMWBS using measurement invariance (MI) between males and females and item response theory (IRT) analyses
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