Purpose The concept of maximising well-being, as
opposed to merely treating mental disorder, is a powerful
current theme in the area of mental health. Clearly this
emphasises the need for appropriate valid and reliable
measures of general well-being. This paper examines the
appropriateness of a number of measures in this area and
concludes that existing assessment tools fail to address the
full range of aspects of personal well-being. This paper
therefore presents the psychometric properties, validity and
reliability of a new measure of well-being—the BBC Wellbeing
Scale.
Methods A total of 1,940 participants completed the new
measure, the Goldberg scales of anxiety and depression,
the ‘List of Threatening Experiences’ life events scale, a
modified version of the Response Styles Questionnaire and
a modified version of the Internal, Personal and Situational
Attributions Questionnaire presented via the internet.
Results Exploratory factor-analysis suggested a threefactor
solution including themes of psychological wellbeing,
physical health and well-being and relationships.
The total 24-item scale had good internal consistency
(a = .935) and correlated significantly with key demographic
variables and measures of concurrent validity.
Conclusions The new measure—the BBC Well-being
Scale—is recommended for research and clinical purposes