The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) was developed to assess satisfaction with the respondent’s life as a whole. The scale does not assess satisfaction with life domains such as health or ﬁnances but allows subjects to integrate and weight these domains in whatever way they choose. Normative data are presented for the scale, which shows good convergent validity with other scales and with other types of assessments of subjective well-being. Life satisfaction as assessed by the SWLS shows a degree of temporal stability (e.g., 0.54 for 4 years), yet the SWLS has shown sufﬁcient sensitivity to be potentially valuable to detect change in life satisfaction during the course of clinical intervention. Further, the scale shows discriminant validity from emotional well-being measures. The SWLS is recommended as a complement to scales that focus on psychopathology or emotional well-being because it assesses an individuals’ conscious evaluative judgment of his or her life by using the person’s own criteria.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2199194_code1909335.pdf?abstractid=2199194&mirid=1

Review of the Satisfaction with Life Scale

The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) was developed to assess satis-faction with the respondent’s life as a whole. The scale does not assess satisfaction with life domains such as health or finances but allows subjects to integrate and weight these domains in whatever way they choose. Normative data are presented for the scale, which shows good convergent validity with other scales and with other types of assessments of subjective well-being. Life satisfaction as assessed by the SWLS shows a degree of temporal stability (e.g., 0.54 for 4 years), yet the SWLS has shown sufficient sensitivity to be potentially valuable to detect change in life satis-faction during the course of clinical intervention. Further, the scale shows discrim-inant validity from emotional well-being measures. The SWLS is recommended as a complement to scales that focus on psychopathology or emotional well-being because it assesses an individuals’ conscious evaluative judgment of his or her life by using the person’s own criteria.

https://internal.psychology.illinois.edu/~ediener/Documents/Pavot-Diener_1993.pdf

Review of the Satisfaction With Life Scale

This paper introduces and applies an operationalization of mental health as a syndrome of symptoms of positive feelings and positive functioning in life. Dimensions and scales of subjective well-being are reviewed and conceived of as mental health symptoms. A diagnosis of the presence of mental health, described as flourishing, and the absence of mental health, characterized as languishing, is applied to data from the 1995 Midlife in the United States study of adults between the ages of 25 and 74 (n = 3,032). Findings revealed that 17.2 percent fit the criteria for flourishing, 56.6 percent were moderately mentally healthy, 12.1 percent of adults fit the criteria for languishing, and 14.1 percent fit the criteria for DSM-III-R major depressive episode (12-month), of which 9.4 percent were not languishing and 4.7 percent were also languishing. The risk of a major depressive episode was two times more likely among languishing than moderately mentally healthy adults, and nearly six times greater among languishing than flourishing adults. Multivariate analyses revealed that languishing and depression were associated with significant psychosocial impairment in terms of perceived emotional health, limitations of activities of daily living, and workdays lost or cutback. Flourishing and moderate mental health were associated with superior profiles of psychosocial functioning. The descriptive epidemiology revealed that males, older adults, more educated individuals, and married adults were more likely to be mentally healthy. Implications for the conception of mental health and the treatment and prevention of mental illness are discussed.

The mental health continuum: from languishing to flourishing in life.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w7487/w7487.pdf

Well-Being Over Time in Britain and the USA

Background Patients' perspectives concerning impaired functioning provide important information.

Aims To evaluate the reliability and validity of the Work and Social Adjustment Scale (WSAS).

Method Data from two studies were analysed. Reliability analyses included internal scale consistency, test—retest and parallel forms. Convergent and criterion validities were examined with respect to disorder severity.

Results Cronbach's α measure of internal scale consistency ranged from 0.70 to 0.94. Test—retest correlation was 0.73. Interactive voice response administrations of the WSAS gave correlations of 0.81 and 0.86 with clinician interviews. Correlations of WSAS with severity of depression and obsessive—compulsive disorder symptoms were 0.76 and 0.61, respectively. The scores were sensitive to patient differences in disorder severity and treatment-related change.

Conclusions The WSAS is a simple, reliable and valid measure of impaired functioning. It is a sensitive and useful outcome measure offering the potential for readily interpretable comparisons across studies and disorders.

/pdf/the-work-and-social-adjustment-scale-a-simple-measure-of-2nfw851fyu.pdf

The Work and Social Adjustment Scale: a simple measure of impairment in functioning.

This study details the psychometric evaluation of the Quality of Life Inventory (QOLI), a measure of life satisfaction that may complement symptom-oriented measures of psychological functioning in evaluating the outcome of interventions aimed at ameliorating mental disorders, disabling physical illnesses, and community-wide social problems

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pas/4/1/92.pdf

John Cornell

Papers

Clinical Validation of the Quality of Life Inventory: A Measure of Life Satisfaction for Use in Treatment Planning and Outcome Assessment

Quality of Life Inventory