Mental Health Indicators
Health Scotland is developing a core set of national Mental Health and Well-being Indicators for Scotland.
Background
Mental health is a national public health priority for Scotland. To date, there has been no assessment of the overall mental health of Scotland’s population, without which it is difficult to determine whether mental health is improving in Scotland or to track progress.
NHS Health Scotland was therefore commissioned by the Scottish Government’s National Programme for Improving Mental Health and Well-being to establish a core set of national, sustainable mental health indicators to support the Scottish Government’s drive on mental health improvement.
Adult mental health indicator set
A set of adult mental health indicators has been established and was finalised December 2007. These indicators cover both positive mental health (mental well-being) as well as mental health problems.
Information on this work and the outputs are available here.
Children & young people's mental health indicator set
A programme of work has now begun to establish children and young people's mental health indicators.
Information on the progress of this work and the outputs are available here.
Measuring positive mental health (mental well-being):
The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS)
To obtain an assessment of the overall positive mental health of the adult population, a new scale was developed in the course of the mental health indicators programme - the Warwick-Edinurgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS).
Information on this new 14 item scale, the scale itself and details on using WEMWBS are available here.
The validity of WEMWBS with children of secondary school age is now being tested as part of the work to establish children and young people's mental health indicators.
Contact for the indicators work
If you have comments on the indicators project or require further information please contact Jane Parkinson – jane.parkinson@health.scot.nhs.uk
Last update 21st May 2008