WHO-5 Well-Being Index
WHO-5A 5-item self-report scale of subjective psychological well-being over the past two weeks; brief and widely used as a depression screen.
Ready-to-cite methods sentence
Reliability & validation
Response anchors
At no time · Some of the time · Less than half of the time · More than half of the time · Most of the time · All of the time
Known limitations
Free to use with copyright acknowledgment (WHO). Very brief; a low score is a screen, not a diagnosis, and ceiling effects occur in generally healthy samples.
Original citation
Topp, C. W., Østergaard, S. D., Søndergaard, S., Bech, P. (2015). The WHO-5 Well-Being Index: A systematic review of the literature. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 84(3), 167-176.
https://doi.org/10.1159/000376585Questions researchers ask
What does the WHO-5 measure?
A 5-item self-report scale of subjective psychological well-being over the past two weeks; brief and widely used as a depression screen.
How many items does the WHO-5 have?
The WHO-5 Well-Being Index (WHO-5) has 5 items.
Is the WHO-5 free to use?
The WHO-5 is free to use for non-commercial academic research. You don't need to pay a license fee, but you should always cite the original publication.
Is the WHO-5 reliable?
Validation studies report Cronbach's α of 0.84. See the reliability section for the population studied and full statistics.
Who developed the WHO-5, and how do I cite it?
Topp, C. W., Østergaard, S. D., Søndergaard, S., Bech, P. (2015). The WHO-5 Well-Being Index: A systematic review of the literature. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 84(3), 167-176. https://doi.org/10.1159/000376585
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Related scales
Library entry verified July 2026. Metadata is provided for reference; item wording is available inside Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing.