| Other defra.gov.uk sites
 

Creating sustainable communities and a fairer world

68m. Positive mental health

Measure to be developed

68m

  • This measure will assess mental health from a positive perspective rather than poor mental health or mental illness and research commissioned by NHS Health Scotland has developed a potential measure,  the  Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well Being Scale (WEMWBS).  This asks survey respondents to score how often a set of 14 positive statements applies to them on a 5 point frequency scale.  Scores are summed to give an overall score between 14 and 70.
  • WEMWBS was included for the first time in a Scottish survey in 2006. The average total score for Scotland was 51, i.e. a score which might involve scoring 3 or 4 out of 5 on the 14 mental wellbeing statements.
  • The chart shows the differences in the average total score for selected sub-groups compared with the overall average total score.  This shows that those experiencing bad or very bad general health, and those with a household income of less than £5,200 scored themselves lower than the average. 




Updated: 30 July 2009