Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale Claire Turbutt, Plymouth City Council Advanced Public Health Practitioner,

What is WEMWBS So much work around wellbeing going on in the city. How do we compare different projects? How do we measure the impact of a project and then compare that to a one off intervention. This is a question which has been plaguing the health community for years. There was a call for a good tool to tell us which programmes, interventions and projects were working to improve wellbeing and which weren’t. The Warwick Edinburgh Wellbeing Scale was created by Sarah Stewart-Brown with her colleagues in Edinburgh and Warwick. It was developed to enable the monitoring of mental wellbeing in the general population and the evaluation of projects, programmes and policies which aim to improve mental wellbeing. It is a validated tool – it has been shown that the different scores on the scale correlate significantly with other recognised measures of mental wellbeing. Since its launch it has been widely used, this means more data is being gathered on its effectiveness as more data is submitted. Simple – it is presented in two forms short and long 7 or 14 questions. The 7 question version is more rigorous meaning it has undergone more testing (more people have used it in the real world meaning it has been shown to be more reliable). Cheap – In order to administer simply need one sheet of paper and a pen. Using the tool is free – it is available from the website you were all sent before today. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/med/research/platform/wemwbs/

Why are we asking you to use it? We are aspiring to create a city where everyone has an outstanding standard of living. This includes encouraging and making it easy for people to live happy fulfilled lives. Comparisons – entirely different projects can be compared using the tool. Validity – as discussed above the tool has been validated and has high internal rigour Impact - Commissioning agencies are nearly always looking for proof of impact.

How has it been used? Plymouth Energy Company (PEC) Plymouth Community Homes (PCH) Active Neighbourhoods Gardening Projects

How do you use it? Two versions – Short and Long Beginning and end of activity Minimum 2 weeks between

Group Work In groups of 3 or 4 take a copy of the short and long WEMWBS sheets Look through the questions Do they mean the same thing to everyone in your group? Are there any you would not want to answer publicly? How could you use the questions in your organisation?

Limitations and Provisos 2 weeks minimum Emotional impact Proper support