Paper
Saturday, November 3, 2007
87
Assessing Sense of Well-Being Globally in Compromised Elders
Takahashi Ryutaro, MD, PhD, Human Care Research Team, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Tokyo, Japan and Sarah Gueldner, DSN, RN, FAAN, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA.
The Well-Being Picture Scale (WPS) is introduced as an easy-to-administer ten-item instrument developed to measure sense of well-being in the broadest possible range of populations, including persons who may have difficulty reading English text, or who may be too sick or frail to respond to lengthier or more complex measures. The scale has been translated into Taiwanese, Japanese, Arabic, Korean, and Spanish, and reports an overall Cronbach’s alpha of .88. The WPS is available in a paper and pencil format, and is presently under development as an online tool. A significant correlation (p = .01) has been established between scores on the WPS and the Geriatric Depression Scale in a sample of 200 community dwelling elders.