Adding New Variables to the Well-being Process Questionnaire (WPQ) – Further Studies of Workers and Students

Background: The Well-being Process Questionnaire (WPQ) has proven to be a useful instrument in the measurement of well-being. This is because it uses single/short items to measure several well-being variables with the same instrument. This article attempts to add resilience, work-life balance and burnout to the WPQ to find out if they increase its predictive value.

Aims: First, to confirm the effect of the established predictors from previous studies which used the WPQ. Secondly, to test new variables: resilience, work-life balance and burnout to observe how they relate with the established variables to check for the possibility of their subsequent addition to future iterations of the WPQ.

Methodology: The research summarized in this paper comprises two studies. The sample for the first study comprised 105 White British workers (male and female), aged 18-66 (mean age: 39.8). The sample for the second study was 145 university undergraduates (male and female), aged 18-23 (mean age: 19.19). Ethical approval for both studies was granted by the Research Ethics Committee of the Cardiff University School of Psychology. The theoretical framework was the Demands-Resources Individual Effects (DRIVE) model, while the instruments used were the Well-being Process Questionnaire (WPQ) and the Student Well-being Process Questionnaire (Student WPQ) respectively. Regressions were carried out to test for the established effects. Stepwise regressions were performed to ascertain if the combination of the established effects and new variables had any significant implications for future WPQ iterations and studies.

Results: Many of the established effects were replicated in both studies. The longer and shorter items for burnout and work-life balance showed moderate to strong correlations at P<0.001: emotional exhaustion, .67, depersonalization, .62 and personal efficacy, 0.58 Work-Family Conflict (WFC), .74 and Family-Work Conflict (FWC), .72. For resilience, the shorter and longer scales only correlated in one of the two steps of the confirmatory analyses. Some of the established effects remained after demographics and the new variables were controlled for in stepwise regressions for both studies. Both poor work-life balance and burnout seemed to be related to the negative established effects.

Conclusion: All components of work-life balance and burnout (except personal accomplishment) should be included in future iterations of the WPQ.