Validating the Portuguese version of the Satisfaction With Life Scale in an elderly sample

Life satisfaction is referred to a cognitive, judgmental process (Diener et al. in J Pers Assess 49:71-75, 1985), in which person's quality of life is globally assessed according to his/her chosen criteria (Shin and Johnson in Soc Indic res 5:475-492, 1978). Thus, life satisfaction is a conscious cognitive judgment, based on the comparison of one's life with a self-imposed standard or set of standards, which lead to a global assessment of life (Pavot and Diener in Psychol Assess 5:164-172, 1993). Among the many scales developed to measure life satisfaction, the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS, Diener et al. in J Pers Assess 49:71-75, 1985) is one of the global life satisfaction scales more often used in the research arena. It is composed of five items assessing global life satisfaction, using a Likert type response format. The aim of this paper is to validate the Portuguese version of the SWLS via confirmatory factor analysis, with a sample of 1,003 elderly from Angola. Reliability, factorial and criterial validity estimates are presented. Overall, the results shown that the scale had an adequate one-factor confirmatory solution, satisfying reliability indices, and adequate criterion-related validity when assessed in a sample of Angolan elderly. The discussion relates the results with existing literature and posits the contributions of the paper: firstly, it offers the researchers on life satisfaction in Portuguese-speaking contexts a brief, self-rated measure of satisfaction with life that has sound psychometric properties, validity, and reliability; secondly, it is the first confirmatory validation of the scale in Portuguese.