Factor structure and measurement invariance of the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (SWEMWBS) among adolescents and youth

The 7-item Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (SWEMWBS) is widely used for measuring mental well-being due to its strong psychometric properties. However, its suitability for adolescents, particularly across gender and age groups, has not been established. The aim of the study was to assess the psychometric properties, factor structure, and measurement invariance of the SWEMWBS in Finnish youth. The data from the 2017 School Health Promotion Survey included 132,828 young people (aged 13 to 20; 48.0% cis-female, 46.5% cis-male) from Finnish lower and upper secondary schools. The study employed exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), McDonald’s omega (ω), and measurement invariance. A single-factor model with good internal consistency (ω = 0.962) was confirmed via CFA, with minor residual correlations included in the model. Full scalar invariance was established across age, perceived health, chronic illness, loneliness, relationship status, and having at least one friend. The results indicate that the scale is suitable for detecting true differences in mental well-being across these groups. However, scalar invariance was only partial for gender and mental ill-health, suggesting some variability in the measurement properties of the SWEMWBS. The SWEMWBS is sufficiently unidimensional and suitable for measuring mental well-being among Finnish adolescents. The scale is appropriate for population-level monitoring, as well as in intervention studies targeting the mental well-being in youth. However, comparing scores with the adult population or between specific groups (e.g., those with or without mental health conditions) requires caution.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  BMC Psychology

• Publication date

  2025-11-07

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1186/s40359-025-03571-6PMID 41204313PMCID 12595747
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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