Ryff’s psychological wellbeing scale (18 items)

The 18-item version of Ryff’s Psychological WellBeing Scale (Ryff and Keyes, 1995) is a self-report instrument that comprises 18 items measuring six dimensions of psychological wellbeing: autonomy, environmental mastery, self-acceptance, personal growth, positive relations with others, and purpose in life. The items are rated on a 6-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Therefore, the total score is in the range of 18–108, with higher scores representing greater wellbeing. The Swedish version of the scale used in this study was developed by Garcia (2006) and has been extensively used in several studies (e.g., Garcia et al., 2012, 2015; Garcia and Moradi, 2013). For the original study, the instrument was translated into Swedish by a bilingual Swedish teacher who was fluent in both English and Swedish. Then, a bilingual English teacher, fluent in Swedish, back-translated the instrument. A group of psychologists compared the back-translated version of the scale with the original version in order to check the quality and precision of translation. Any differences between these two versions were judged based on the consensus achieved by them, which led to the final 18-item Swedish version used here. Finally, to assess any misunderstanding and ambiguity in wording, this Swedish version was used in a pilot in a group of 30 participants, who were asked to rate readability and clarity of every single item on a six-point scale, ranging from 0 (not understandable) to 5 (completely understandable). For every item, “completely understandable” response option was endorsed by at least 95% of the respondents, and therefore, there was no need for item revision (Guillemin et al., 1993). Given that the subscales of the 18-item version show low to modest internal consistency, Garcia used and recommended that the total score is a better and more reliable measure of psychological wellbeing (Garcia and Siddiqui, 2009).