Development of a Pragmatic and Brief Wellbeing Tool for Public Health Promotion: The Mental Wellbeing Indicator (MWI)

Emily Brindal^*Naomi Kakoschke

• Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Canberra, Australia

Background Despite growing emphasis on mental wellbeing as a critical part of health, few tools allow the public to track and understand it. Our aim was to develop a brief wellbeing tool for public health promotion and research that could be offered directly to the public to assist in improving community wellbeing literacy. Methods The study involved the completion of a single-time, anonymous online survey administered to panel members of an independent market research company. Eligible participants were aged 18 years and over, residing in Australia and not self-identifying as experiencing considerable struggles with emotions or stress. Measures included existing tools theoretically aligned with existing wellbeing indexes (Satisfaction with Life, Psychological Wellbeing Scale, Mental-Health Consortium) and scales capturing theorised elements of state and trait wellbeing across several theoretical conceptions (e.g., positive affect, hope, self-efficacy, self-esteem, social support). Results The final sample included 1267 adults (50.4% male, 32.8% aged 25-44 years) which was split into a training sample (n=887) for factor identification and item selection, and a test sample for confirmation (n=380). A series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identified three core constructs (Subjective Wellbeing, Perceived Social Support and Authenticity). The final 11-item set fit the data well (i.e., Comparative Fit Index > .99). Overall, the three constructs were moderately related to each other and aligned with existing wellbeing theories. Together these were named the Mental Wellbeing Indicator (MWI). Correlations with other indicators including mental health diagnosis and resilience suggested convergent and divergent validity. Predictive validity was demonstrated strongly for Subjective Wellbeing, moderately for Perceived Social Support and weakly for Authenticity. Conclusions These findings largely demonstrate the validity and utility of the tool for assessing wellbeing and predicting important outcomes. After further study, the MWI could become a promising wellbeing tool in public health promotion.