Construct validity of Ryff's Scale of Psychological Well-being in Spanish older adults

The purpose of this study was to investigate factorial and content validity of the 9-item per dimension Ryff's Scale of Psychological Well-being in a sample of older Spanish adults. The scale is made up of six subscales: Self-acceptance, Environmental mastery, Positive relations with others, Autonomy, Personal growth, and Purpose in life. After translating the scale, it was administered to 422 retired people ages 65 and older. The internal consistency coefficients of the subscales were modest to low, but similar to the ones reported in previous studies. Although correlation profiles of the subscales replicated previous findings and are consistent with a distinction between two types of well-being (eudaimonic and hedonic), results from a second-order principal factor analysis including alternative well-being measures are rather ambiguous. As for the proposed 6-factor structure of the scale, neither exploratory principal component analysis nor confirmatory factor analysis supported clearly this factor structure, with or without second-order latent constructs.