Validation and psychometric evaluation of the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (SWEMWBS) among Czech adolescents using Item Response Theory.

BACKGROUND: The topic of adolescent mental health is currently a subject of much debate due to the increasing prevalence of mental health problems among this age group. Therefore, it is crucial to have high-quality and validated mental well-being measurement tools. While such tools do exist, they are often not tailored specifically to adolescents and are not available in Czech language. The aim of this study is to validate and test the Czech version of the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (SWEMWBS) on a large sample of Czech adolescents aged 15 to 18 years. METHODS: The analysis is based on data from the first wave of the Czech Education Panel Survey (CZEPS) and was mainly conducted using Item Response Theory (IRT), which is the most appropriate method for this type of analysis. Specifically, the Graded Response Model (GRM) was applied to the data. This comprehensive validation study also included reliability and three types of validity (construct, convergent and criterion) testing. RESULTS: The study found that the Czech version of the SWEMWBS for adolescents aged 15 to 18 years (N = 22,498) has good quality and psychometric properties. The data was analysed using the GRM model as it met the assumptions for the use of IRT. The estimated parameter values by GRM demonstrated good discriminant and informative power for all items, except for item 7, which showed poorer results compared to the others. However, excluding it from the scale would not enhance the overall quality of the scale. The five-category response scale functions effectively. Additionally, the results demonstrated high reliability, and all types of validity tested were also confirmed. CONCLUSIONS: The Czech version of the SWEMWBS for adolescents has been validated as a psychometrically sound, reliable and valid instrument for measuring mental well-being. It can therefore be used with confidence in future studies.

Better sleep, better life? testing the role of sleep on quality of life.

Previous research has shown that sleep deprivation, low quality sleep or inconvenient sleeping times are associated with lower quality of life. However, research of the longitudinal effects of sleep on quality of life is scarce. Hence, we know very little about the long-term effect of changes in sleep duration, sleep quality and the time when individuals sleep on quality of life. Using longitudinal data from three waves of the Czech Household Panel Study (2018-2020) containing responses from up to 4,523 respondents in up to 2,155 households, the study examines the effect of changes in sleep duration, sleep quality and social jetlag on satisfaction with life, happiness, work stress, subjective health and wellbeing. Although sleep duration and timing are important, panel analyses reveal that sleep quality is the strongest predictor of all sleep variables in explaining both within-person and between-person differences in quality of life indicators.

The Making of a Radical: The Role of Peer Harassment in Youth Political Radicalism.

Although political radicalism is one of the major societal threats, we have limited understanding of how it is formed. While there are reasons to expect that harassment experienced in adolescence increase the propensity for radicalism, this relationship has not yet been investigated. This five-wave study of Swedish adolescents (N = 892) examined the role of peer harassment in radical political behavior. The results revealed that within-person fluctuations in harassment were positively related to fluctuations in radicalism. Individual-level (but not class-level) harassment also predicted differences between adolescents: youth who experienced more harassment had higher levels of and a more pronounced decrease in radicalism. In addition, adolescents who had more supportive teachers or parents were less affected by harassment than youth with less-supportive adults. The findings suggest that personal experiences of harassment increase the risk of radicalism but supportive relationships can mitigate their negative consequences.

The Polls-Trends: Welfare Regimes and Support for Income Redistribution in Europe.

Income redistribution and changes in redistributive policies are highly contested issues that often have a bearing on societal debate and electoral competition. Using European Social Survey data, we trace trends in public attitudes toward income redistribution in 18 European countries from 2002 to 2019, a time period which included the Great Recession, the 2015 migrant crisis, and an increase in income inequality. Although attitudes toward income redistribution were relatively stable, trends presented by countries grouped by welfare regime display considerable variation both among countries and among welfare regimes. We also trace trends in public support for redistribution by income groups and gauge the strength of belief in meritocracy and egalitarianism. The level of redistribution support among middle-income residents is similar to redistribution support of low-income residents, most notably in post-communist and social-democratic regimes. While egalitarianism is most widespread in the Mediterranean regime, meritocracy is most common in liberal and conservative regimes.