Manage your own wellbeing

Manage your own wellbeing using WEMWBS

How happy are you? Would you like to measure your wellbeing?

Good mental wellbeing – some people call it happiness – is about more than avoiding mental health problems. It means feeling good and functioning well.

You can monitor your own wellbeing using a tool called WEMWBS (Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale), a scale which is often used by scientists and psychologists to measure wellbeing.

The WEMWBS questionnaire for measuring mental wellbeing was developed by researchers at Warwick and Edinburgh Universities (see Tennant R, Hiller L, Fishwick R, Platt P, 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 Outcome; 5:63 doi:101186/1477-7252-5-63).

To get your wellbeing score, you go through a series of  statements and tick the box that best describes your thoughts and feelings over the last two weeks. Click here to download a blank WEMWBS template. The 2nd page of the template gives assistance in what each score means.

You can measure and improve your wellbeing by using the local authorities website for Five Ways to Wellbeing where you will find a lot more useful information and also complete WEMWBS online click here for more details.