Validity and Reliability of the Brazilian short version of the Subjective Well-being Inventory (SUBI)

Andreoli, Sérgio

Validity and Reliability of the Brazilian short version of the Subjective Well-being Inventory (SUBI)

Tuesday, 19 August 2014

Exhibit hall (Dena'ina Center)

Mário César R Andrade, MS , Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Marina Bandeira, PhD , Universidade Federal de São João del-Rei, São João del-Rei, Brazil

Marcelo Demarzo, PhD , Universidade Católica de Santos, Santos, Brazil

Aline Cacozzi, BS , Universidade Católica de Santos, Santos, Brazil

Denise Martin, PhD , Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Maria Inês Quintana, PhD , Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Rodrigo A Bressan, PhD , Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Marcelo F Mello, PhD , Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Jair J Mari, PhD , Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Sérgio B Andreoli, PhD , Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

INTRODUCTION: Subjective Well-being (SWB) is defined as how people evaluate their own lives, including life satisfaction and positive affects. Accounts of SWB are increasingly desirable in societies, since it reflects the global health and quality of life of population. Consequently, many instruments have been developed internationally to assess such feature, but few of them are available in Brazil. This study aimed to validate a Brazilian short version of a SBW scale.

METHODS: This cross-sectional study included a probabilistic community sample of 3740 people from the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. SWB was measured with a short version of the self- reported and Brazilian adapted Subjective Well-being Inventory (SUBI), which includes six items from the 40 of the Indian original scale: interest in life, congruence between success and deserts, congruence between accomplishments and efforts, life compared with past, moments of intense happiness and sense of belongingness to mankind. Convergent validity was assessed, using Pearson’s correlations of SUBI score with the Positive and Negative Affects Schedule (PANAS) and the Resilience Scale scores. Reliability was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and item-total correlations. A significance level of p<0.05 was used.

RESULTS: Significant and positive correlations with the positive affect scale and total score (positive minus negative affect) of the PANAS and the total score of the Resilience scale were found, 0.32, 0.44 and 0.29 respectively. A significant and negative correlation of 0.25 was also found, with PANAS negative affect scale. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.74 and item-total correlations varied from 0.38 to 0.54.

CONCLUSIONS: Our significant results attest the validity and reliability of this short version of SUBI in a Brazilian representative sample. These results also enable the use of this scale as a useful and rapid tool in future surveys aimed to assess SWB among the Brazilian population.