Assessment of well-being in the clinic: Using the state version of the short Scale of General Well-Being as a clinical outcome measure

Abstract

Objective: Interest in the concept of well-being within clinical and applied psychology settings has increased, highlighting a need to develop appropriate measures. The aim was to adapt and test the validity of the 14-item Scale of General Well-Being (14-SGWB) originally developed by Longo et al. (2018), as a clinical outcome measure. Method: Study 1 is a psychometric study with 543 nonclinical participants, the wording of the 14-SGWB was adapted, and tested for reliability and convergent validity. Study 2 investigated the adapted version with 125 clients over 10 therapy sessions, examining sensitivity, and reliable change cut-off. Results: The final 14-SGWB-clinical tool has a single component structure, good convergent validity, and can assess reliable and clinically significant change. Conclusion: Measures that assess positive psychological change are important for the future development of clinical and applied psychology. The 14-SGWB-ct offers researchers a measure to extend evaluations of interventions to the effects on well-being.