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 intimate relationship status (with patients involved having higher scores than those not involved), age (+), education (−), positive (+) and negative (−) affect and self-esteem. The SWLS was clearly more strongly associated with another general measure of satisfaction with life (convergent validity) than with measures of affect, self-esteem, symptoms, invalidity or demographic background (divergent validity). Evidence in favour of the discriminatory power of the SWLS was found in the significantly lower scores of the psychiatric patients as compared to those of non-psychiatric controls. The SWLS represents a potentially valuable clinical assessment and research tool with samples comprising patients with severe, chronic mental illness.