Development and preliminary validation of the South Wales Social Well-being Scale (SWSWBS)

Physical, mental and social components of well-being are known to be important to health. However, research on well-being often focuses on physical and mental well-being with little attention paid to social well-being. This research aims to develop and preliminarily validate the South Wales Social Well-being Scale (SWSWBS) to measure social well-being.

A non-experimental and cross-sectional design was applied with two phases: scale development and preliminary validation. Initially, 24 items were drawn from a Group Concept Mapping study exploring the concept of social well-being. These items were reviewed and reduced to 14 for preliminary validation among 103 university students and staff in health and social care disciplines. Construct validity (exploratory factor analysis and convergent validity) were tested. Reliability was demonstrated by internal consistency. Floor and ceiling effects were also evaluated.

A 3-factor structure was identified and explored, which highlight the most important features of the social world a person inhabits: "Safe and inclusive interaction with others" (6 items), "Learning, helping, and feeling useful" (4 items), and "Security, worthwhile activities, family and friends" (4 items). The SWSWBS was correlated to the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale and the Four measures of Personal Well-being Scale to some extent. The Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0.85 for the sum score and 0.83-0.86 for individual items. The item-total correlation coefficients ranged between 0.08 and 0.65. The split half reliability coefficient was 0.78. There is absence of a floor effect, but most items had a ceiling effect.

Preliminary validation of the SWSWBS shows the scale has satisfactory psychometric properties with good validity, reliability, and reasonable variability. This study needs to be replicated with larger and representative populations to explore how the scale can be used alongside the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale to capture a holistic/multi-dimensional understanding of well-being.