Measurement invariance properties and external construct validity of the short Warwick-Edinburgh mental wellbeing scale in a large national sample of secondary school students in Wales.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

The study of mental wellbeing requires reliable, valid, and practical measurement tools. One of the most widely used measures of mental wellbeing is the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS). Our aim was to examine the psychometric properties of SWEMWBS (a brief seven-item version) in a 'real-world' population sample of young people.

Methods

We used data from the 2017 School Health Research Network Student Health and Wellbeing Survey, completed by 103,971 students in years 7 to 11 from 193 secondary schools in Wales. We first estimated polychoric correlation matrices for the whole sample and by school year, and undertook a principal components analysis to check for configural invariance. Subsequently, we used a multiple-groups structural equation model wi

SUBMITTER: Melendez-Torres GJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6694652 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature