Chronic psychiatric status and satisfaction with life

The present study represents the first to administer the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) as part of a. semi-structured interview to a large sample of psychiatric patients with severe mental illness. psychometric appraisal of the SWLS demonstrated that figures on its internal structure were quite favourable. SWLS scores were shown to be predictably associated with intim ate relationship status (with patients involved having higher scores than t hose not involved), age (+), education (-), positive (+) and negative (-) a ffect and self-esteem The SWLS was clearly more strongly associated with an other general measure of satisfaction with life (convergent validity) than with measures of affect, self-esteem symptoms, invalidity ol demographic ba ckground (divergent validity). Evidence in favour of the discriminatory pow er of tilt SWLS was found in the significantly lower scores of the psychiat ric patients as compared to those of non-psychiatric controls. The SWLS rep resents a potentially valuable clinical assessment and research tool with s amples comprising patients with severe, chronic mental illness. (C) 2001 El sevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.