Assessing Well-Being With the Mental Health Quotient: Validation Using Six Psychometric Instruments in Italian Young Adults

• The Italian version of the Mental Health Quotient (MHQ) demonstrated strong reliability (α = 0.94) and strong sample-to-sample consistency (ICC = 0.85), confirming its use for longitudinal mental health monitoring. • he MHQ showed robust convergent, construct validity across six Italian psychometric instruments (PHQ-9, GAD-7, MHCSFs, RS-14, ERQs, and MW-S4), capturing both positive functioning and psychological distress. • The MHQ Life Impact scale offers strong sensitivity to variations in functioning and well-being, providing a more nuanced view of daily life impact and symptom burden. • The MHQ with its novel algorithm effectively stratifies individuals across a spectrum of mental health and clinical risk, enabling personalized and population-level insights. • This validation supports the MHQ as a cross-culturally adaptable, disorder-agnostic tool that can inform prevention, digital interventions, strengthen resilience, and promote mental well-being at both individual and societal levels. The Mental Health Quotient (MHQ) is a digital assessment that measures both positive aspects of mental functioning and clinical symptoms. Originally developed in English, it supports prevention and early risk detection across 70+ countries. Although it has been translated into 17 languages, it had not yet been validated in Italian. This study aimed to translate and validate the MHQ for use with Italian-speaking young adults by assessing reliability and examining associations with six established measures of mental health and well-being. The MHQ was translated into Italian using the forward-backward method. Reliability was evaluated through internal consistency and sample-to-sample stability. Validity analyses included construct validity, enabling comparisons of functional life impact and individuals’ symptomatic experiences. The Italian MHQ demonstrated strong sample-to-sample consistency and high test–retest reliability (ICC = 0.85), with excellent internal consistency (α = .94). In addition, item correlations confirmed cross-cultural reliability. MHQ scores showed strong positive correlations with measures of well-being and functioning ( r =0.61) and resilience ( r = 0.59), and strong negative correlations with depression ( r =−0.77), anxiety ( r = −0.76), and mind wandering ( r = −0.46). MHQ scores decreased systematically with increasing clinical symptoms and diagnosed disorders, confirming sensitivity to clinical burden. These findings support the MHQ as a reliable and valid novel algorithm for assessing mental well-being in Italian-speaking young adults. By combining personalized insight with population-level assessment, the MHQ promotes a disorder-agnostic approach focused on well-being and demonstrates cross-cultural applicability in the context of digital and precision mental health.