The Everyday Feeling Questionnaire: the structure and validation of a measure of general psychological well-being and distress.
BACKGROUND
Psychological distress and well-being underlie the continuum of susceptibility to common mental disorders. Our objective was to provide a simple and acceptable measure of psychological distress and well-being to collect information from subjects and informants in non-clinical samples, to explore its internal structure, concurrent and external validity.


METHODS
Self and partner versions of the ten-item Everyday Feeling Questionnaire (EFQ) were administered to 5,279 adults. The 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) was used to establish concurrent validity. Socioeconomic status, child psychopathology, and family functioning served as external validators.


RESULTS
The EFQ was internally consistent with all items loading strongly on a single common factor. Item response analysis showed excellent sensitivity of the ten items, balanced contribution of well-being and distress items and good information content across a broad range. The internal structure of partner version did not differ from self-report. The constructs measured by the EFQ and GHQ were distinct, but highly correlated. The EFQ's correlations with external validators were stronger than GHQ's ones.


CONCLUSIONS
Psychological well-being and distress are measurable as a single construct, using the EFQ. The partner-report version will facilitate the collection of data on multiple household members or on the same individual from two or more sources.
Uher
Rudolf
R
King's College London Institute of Psychiatry, London, SE5 8AF, UK.
Goodman
Robert
R
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002648:Child; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012923:Social Class; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires