Measuring Mind, Body, Work, and Life Concerns: Development of the LifeScale20 Survey

Abstract

Applied health psychology practitioners have been using the biopsychosocial model when addressing health and well-being issues (Taylor, 1995). A prominent aspect of this model is the role of work and personal life issues as drivers of mental and physical health. Preventive health programs using this holistic approach can help with these issues, preferably before they become severe. The goal of this project was to create a short and easy to use scale that assessed four major conceptual areas (mind, body, work, daily life) of life functioning and to provide normative data for scoring and comparison of individual respondents. 20-item self-report survey instrument is introduced. Based on the biopsychosocial model of health, the Optum LifeScore20 Scale assesses one’s concerns with mind, body, work and life domains.The majority of items assess the level of concern/severity of life issues. The specific issues were derived from on an analysis of the most common reasons given for use of a national 24-hour telephonic service (Optum®). This service provides employee assistance-type counseling, health information from nurses and daily life management resources to over a million people a year. National normative scoring data (N = 1,021) is provided. Scale correlations with demographic and validity factors are also presented. The measures had weak or non-significant associations with demographic factors. This study presents a new self-report instrument, national norms for scoring and initial evidence for both convergent and discriminant forms of measurement validity.