A psychometric evaluation of the Icelandic version of the WHO‐5

Abstract

The psychometric properties of the Icelandic version of the World Health Organization five wellbeing index (WHO-5) were evaluated using two samples, a randomly selected sample (N = 3,896) from the Icelandic National Registry and a convenience sample of primary care patients (N = 126). The factor structure of the scale was tested with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The correlation between the WHO-5 and other measures of depression and anxiety were calculated to assess the scale's convergent and divergent validity. The discriminant validity of the WHO-5 was explored with a receiver operating analysis compared to the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview. The CFA indicated that the factor structure of the WHO-5 was one-dimensional and factorial invariant between groups. The internal reliability of the WHO-5 was adequate and the convergent, divergent and discriminant validity of the WHO-5 was supported. It is concluded that the psychometric properties of the Icelandic version of the WHO-5 are satisfactory.

Reliability, validity, and factorial structure of the World Health Organization-5 Well-Being Index (WHO-5) in Iranian psychiatric outpatients

“…The study by Blom et al 45 found that the WHO-5 negatively correlated with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-6; r=-0.49). Guðmundsdóttir et al 40 reported that the We identified one factor, labeled psychological wellbeing, which accounted for 73.67% of the variance. Our finding is similar to previous studies that also obtained a single factor.…”

“…Cronbach's α values for the WHO-5. 1,16,20,21,[24][25][26][40][41][42][43][44][45] Inter-item correlations were significant for items 3 and 5, and also for items 4 and 5. The associations between the items and the WHO-5 total score were significant for items 3, 4, and the total score.…”

Assessing mental well-being in a Sinhala speaking Sri Lankan population: validation of the WHO-5 well-being index

“…In our review of the corpus of validation studies including the systematic review [1], only two studies have been conducted to test measurement invariance to assess whether the WHO-5 is being understood and interpreted in a similar manner by diverse groups such as by gender, age group, education levels and different culture/language groups in each setting [18,19]. Therefore, the second aim of the study was to test measurement invariance of the WHO-5 among diverse groups using the Sinhala language.…”

Reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the WHO-5, in adults and older adults for its use in primary care settings

“…The WHO-5 is a generic scale which is used to evaluate the general mental well-being of persons (Hall et al ., 2011; Bech, 2012) in clinical settings. The WHO-5 was reported to be one of the very frequently used scales that measure mental wellness and quality of life in Primary Care settings in different population groups such as adolescents and students (Yusoff et al ., 2013; Christensen et al ., 2015; Downs et al ., 2017); pregnant women (Mortazavi et al ., 2015); individuals using primary care services (Henkel et al ., 2004; Saipanish et al ., 2009; Guðmundsdóttir et al ., 2014; Christensen et al ., 2015); and in population-based studies (Khosravi et al ., 2015). Two main studies clearly mentioned the use and the superiority of the WHO-5 for screening mental well-being in PHC settings: Henkel et al .…”

“…Following the presentation of the WHO-5 scale, the original version in English was translated into many other languages by the WHO Regional Office for Europe (Staehr, 1998; Topp et al ., 2015) and by others (Awata et al ., 2007a; Newnham et al ., 2010; Krieger et al ., 2014; Kong et al ., 2016; Halliday et al ., 2017; Bonnín et al ., 2018). The clinical validity for WHO-5 was found to be more than sufficient (Awata et al ., 2007b; Saipanish et al ., 2009; Newnham et al ., 2010; Hall et al ., 2011; Guðmundsdóttir et al ., 2014; Bech et al ., 2018). Furthermore, it was found that the external (clinical) validity of the WHO-5 was not affected by existing comorbid psychiatric disorders, and that it was a substantial indicator of symptoms of depression (Mergl et al ., 2007).…”