VALIDATION OF A GENERAL WELL-BEING SCHEDU LE WITH A FRANCOPHONIC POPULATION AGED 50 TO 75

The General Well-Being Schedule (GWB) is a questionnaire that is frequ ently used in large-scale epidemiological surveys to evaluate the psyc hological health of a given population. In spite of its popularity, it appears that no validation study has been done on a French version of the instrument, The present study proposes a French version of the GW B and establishes its psychometric qualities based on a sample of 369 subjects, 179 of whom are bilingual. The subjects were recruited throu gh notices placed in the different francophone and anglophone media. T he questionnaires were mailed to the subjects. First, the results show a very strong correlation between the translated version and the orig inal version of the questionnaire (r = 0.88, p < 0.0001). The internal consistency of the French version is estimated at 0.92 and its test-r etest reliability at 0.82 (95% CI: 0.71-0.89). Correlations between th e total score on the general well-being scale and measures of depressi on and anxiety are over 0.70. Principal component analysis applied to the French and English versions of the questionnaire suggests the pres ence of a main factor which accounts for 50 per cent of the variance. This study provides a French version of the GWB that may justifiably b e considered reliable and valid. Validation of the questionnaire shoul d be pursued by establishing normative values for the elderly francoph one population and by studying its responsiveness.