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Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale

WEMWBS
psychologyhealth sciencesLicensed — permission required

A 14-item scale measuring mental well-being (hedonic and eudaimonic) over the past two weeks, covering positive affect, psychological functioning, and interpersonal relationships.

Items
14
Response format
5-point frequency scale
Version
1.0

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Mental well-being was measured with the WEMWBS (Tennant et al., 2007), a 14-item scale with high internal consistency (α ≈ .89) and good test-retest reliability.

Reliability & validation

Validation population
UK population and student samples (Tennant et al., 2007)
Test–retest
0.83
Cronbach's α
0.89

Known limitations

Free to use but requires registration/permission from the University of Warwick. Prone to ceiling effects in general-population samples; a 7-item short form (SWEMWBS) offers interval-level scoring.

Original citation

Tennant, R., Hiller, L., Fishwick, R., Platt, S., Joseph, S., Weich, S., Parkinson, J., Secker, J., Stewart-Brown, S. (2007). The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): Development and UK validation. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 5(1), 63.

https://doi.org/10.1186/1477-7525-5-63

This instrument is licensed. Obtain permission from the copyright holder before using it in your study.

Questions researchers ask

What does the WEMWBS measure?

A 14-item scale measuring mental well-being (hedonic and eudaimonic) over the past two weeks, covering positive affect, psychological functioning, and interpersonal relationships.

How many items does the WEMWBS have?

The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) has 14 items.

Is the WEMWBS free to use?

The WEMWBS is licensed. You must obtain permission from the copyright holder before using it in a study — Folio does not distribute its item wording without that permission.

Is the WEMWBS reliable?

Validation studies report Cronbach's α of 0.89, test–retest reliability of 0.83. See the reliability section for the population studied and full statistics.

Who developed the WEMWBS, and how do I cite it?

Tennant, R., Hiller, L., Fishwick, R., Platt, S., Joseph, S., Weich, S., Parkinson, J., Secker, J., Stewart-Brown, S. (2007). The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): Development and UK validation. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 5(1), 63. https://doi.org/10.1186/1477-7525-5-63

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Library entry verified July 2026. Metadata is provided for reference; item wording is available inside Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing.