Measures of Well-Being: An Empirical and Critical Assessment.

Three frequently used measures of well-being--the Life Satisfaction scale, the Social Isolation scale and the Willingness to Live scale - are evaluated in terms of their empirical similarity. The internal consistency of the social isolation items, it is found, does not exceed the cross-correlation between the social isolation and ¶e satisfaction items. A group factor analysis confirms the existence of considerable communality among the items of the two scales, suggesting they are largely redundant. The implications of this redundancy for health-related and gerontological studies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]