Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scales (WEMWBS): Call for Evidence

Please note that this call for evidence closed on the 29th of November.

Have you used the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scales (WEMWBS) to assess the impact of an intervention on mental wellbeing? Then we want to hear from you.

Together with Kohlrabi Consulting, we are reviewing evaluation literature that uses the WEMWBS scales to evaluate wellbeing interventions aimed at children, young people and adults. The project is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund. 

We are interested in studies from across voluntary, public and private sectors, to summarise evidence on what works to improve mental wellbeing, for whom and in what contexts.

Criteria for submission

We are looking for evaluations of interventions where improvement in mental wellbeing is an objective. 

Studies submitted must meet ALL of the following criteria: 

• Evaluate a project or intervention conducted in the UK with children, young people and adults. This can be in any setting, including: community interventions, health interventions, social care/services interventions, education/skills-based interventions and workplace interventions. 
• Assess the effects of a project or intervention on mental wellbeing using the 14-point Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing scale or the 7-point Short-Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing scale. 
• Measure changes in WEMWBS scores against a comparator. This could be by conducting a before-and-after intervention assessment by measuring mental wellbeing at baseline (e.g. pre-intervention) and at endline (post-intervention). 
• Published from 2007-onwards and include author details and date.
• Written in the English language and publicly available.

Why a call for evidence?

Searching for evidence on wellbeing and related topics can present technical and resource challenges, particularly if studies are not adequately indexed by study design or wellbeing measures used. Our experience has shown that some of the wellbeing research produced by our Centre’s audiences is best located through a snowballing approach, by targeting relevant experts and stakeholders.

As part of our evidence reviews, we often use calls for evidence to complement structured database and online literature searches, and, in particular, to increase the sensitivity of grey literature searches. Where necessary, we seek advice from our project consultation groups to ensure quality and fully document the approach in our reports to maximise transparency.