Refining the Holistic Scale of Wellbeing-Preliminary (HSW-P) into Holistic Scale of Wellbeing (HSW) through confirmatory factor analysis

Holistic Scale of Wellbeing-Preliminary (HSW-P) was developed as an indigenous wellbeing measure for young adults. The current study was aimed to validate the HSW- P mainly through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and to further assess its reliability. The 29-item HSW-P was administered on 464 young adults using convenient sampling strategy from three cities of Punjab (Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Bahawalpur). The scale appeared to be a psychometrically sound measure having strong alpha reliability (0.91), split half reliability (0.87) and test retest reliability (0.77). Composite Reliability (CR) and Average Variance Extracted (AVE) were also calculated showing reasonable values. After second order CFA, values of SRMR, RMSEA and χ2/df showed good fit; GFI, AGFI, CFI and IFI showed acceptable fit whereas NFI and TLI were just slightly lower than acceptable fit. All items had positive and medium to strong factor loadings indicating good association between items and respective factors. It was confirmed that HSW has 28 items in seven subscales namely purpose, psychological health, vitality and satisfaction, physical health, finances, relationships, religiosity and spirituality. Based on mean and standard deviation values, score ranges were identified and five wellbeing categories (Poor /Must Be Improved Immediately; Below Average /Must Be Improved; Average /Should Be Improved; Good /Can Be Improved; Exceptional /No Improvement Needed) were finalized. Current study established that HSW is a useful and psychometrically valid tool for wellbeing assessment of indigenous youth. It can be used in wellbeing related researches in Pakistan and it paves way for further indigenous work on wellbeing enhancement.