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Cited by 77Psychological Well-being and Life SatisfactionPsychometric Methodologies and TestingHealth Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of Life

Personal Wellbeing Score (PWS)—a short version of ONS4: development and validation in social prescribing

Open access
Benson, Tim, Sladen, Joe, Liles, Andrew, Potts, Henry W W·2019·BMJ Open Quality
DOI 10.1136/bmjoq-2018-000394PMC PMC6542444
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Abstract

Aims: Our aim was to develop a short generic measure of subjective well-being for routine use in patient-centred care and healthcare quality improvement alongside other patient-reported outcome and experience measures. Methods: The Personal Wellbeing Score (PWS) is based on the Office of National Statistics (ONS) four subjective well-being questions (ONS4) and thresholds. PWS is short, easy to use and has the same look and feel as other measures in the same family of measures. Word length and reading age were compared with eight other measures. Anonymous data sets from five social prescribing projects were analysed. Internal structure was examined using distributions, intra-item correlations, Cronbach’s α and exploratory factor analysis. Construct validity was assessed based on hypothesised associations with health status, health confidence, patient experience, age, gender and number of medications taken. Scores on referral and after referral were used to assess responsiveness. Results: Differences between PWS and ONS4 include brevity (42 vs 114 words), reading age (9 vs 12 years), response options (4 vs 11), positive wording throughout and a summary score. 1299 responses (60% female, average age 81 years) from people referred to social prescribing services were analysed; missing values were less than 2%. PWS showed good internal reliability (Cronbach’s α=0.90). Exploratory factor analysis suggested that all PWS items relate to a single dimension. PWS summary scores correlate positively with health confidence (r=0.60), health status (r=0.58), patient experience (r=0.30) and age group (r=0.24). PWS is responsive to social prescribing intervention. Conclusions: The PWS is a short variant of ONS4. It is easy to use with good psychometric properties, suitable for routine use in quality improvement and health services research.

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  • The ONS4 has demonstrated good internal reliability (Cronbach α=.90) and convergent validity.

    “The ONS4 is widely used among various patient populations [36-40] and has demonstrated good internal reliability (Cronbach α=.90) and convergent validity [41].”

    From A Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Chatbot (Otis) for Health Anxiety Management: Mixed Methods Pilot Study (2022) · cites this paper as [41]

    The Results (Internal consistency; page not available) assign Cronbach’s α=0.90 to the Personal Wellbeing Score (PWS), not ONS4. The Methods discuss convergent validity in the PWS validation, while the Discussion (Comparison with existing literature; page not available) distinguishes PWS from ONS4 and calls for a direct comparison. The cited paper therefore does not establish the stated reliability and validity for ONS4. (LLM, conf=0.88)

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Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. [9]OECD OECD guidelines on measuring subjective well-being. OECD publishing 2013. 24600748
  2. [34]NHS Health Research Authority Defining research: research ethics service guidance to help you decide if your project requires review by a research ethics committee. UK Health Departments’ Research Ethics Service, 2016.

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Authors
Benson, T., Sladen, J., Liles, A., & Potts, H. W. W.
Affiliations
  • University College London (GB)
  • R-Outcomes Ltd, Thatcham, UK
  • Royal Holloway University of London (GB)
Corresponding author
Benson, Tim
ORCID
Venue
BMJ Open Quality
Publisher
BMJ
Published
2019-04
Volume
8
Issue
2
Pages
e000394
ISSN
2399-6641 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1136/bmjoq-2018-000394
PMC
PMC6542444
OpenAlex
W2938127064
Cited by
77
References
33
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 3
FWCI
9.11
Type
journal article
Language
en
Update notices
correction (2019-07-08)
Open access
Licence
cc-by-nc
Locations
  • BMJ Open Quality (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Wessex Academic Health Science Network
  • Oxford Academic Health Science Network
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Health Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of Life
Keywords
subjective well-being, social prescribing, patient-reported outcomes, psychometric validation, health confidence, patient experience, responsiveness to intervention, patient-centered care, quality improvement
MeSH terms
Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Female, Health Status, Humans, Male, Personal Satisfaction, Psychometrics, Surveys and Questionnaires, Reproducibility of Results

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