Measurement of the psychological well-being of adolescents: The psychometric properties and assessment procedures of the how I feel

The assessment procedures and psychometric properties of the How I Feel (HIF), an instrument used to assess psychological well-being in a population of Black adolescents are described. The audiovisual mode of presentation obviates problems related to reading skill; in addition, it standardizes the administration of the instrument. The How I Feel appears to measure reliably and validly several multi-item constructs representing psychological well-being. These constructs relate to other instruments and constructs in meaningful and interesting ways. A major result of our validity studies is that there appear to be two major components of psychological well-being, psychopathology and self-esteem.Research presented in this paper is from the Social Psychiatry Study Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Chicago and was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA-00787).Received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Main research interests are biopsychosocial development in adolescence, especially for girls, and applications of statistical and psychometric methods to problems in longitudinal research.Received his M.D. from University of Maryland. His psychiatric residency and research training was at Yale University and National Institute of Mental Health. Main research interests are long-term studies of social adaptation, psychological well-being (including psychopathology), and social structure and processes of the family and other social fields such as the psychiatric ward.