Operationalizing Current Conceptualizations of Child Well-Being Through a Scoping Review of Child Well-Being Measures
摘要
Child well-being has become a key area of inquiry in recent years, however what exactly this construct refers to is heterogeneous, and there is limited consensus on its constituents, determinants, and expressions. One way to refine a construct is to examine approaches to its measurement; this review examines the construct of child well-being through an analysis of global child well-being measures. A total of 7,014 records were identified through electronic databases, backward searches, and gray literature up to August 2024, with 77 records (82 measures) included in the final analysis. Results indicate that child well-being measurement is conceptually fragmented, characterized by diverse constructs, overlapping domains, and interchangeable uses of terms such as child well-being (61 measures), quality of life (11), life satisfaction (5), flourishing or thriving (4), and happiness (1). Approximately 27% of the measures included domains reflecting the presence of well-being, while 14% focused solely on adversity as indicators of well-being. The majority (n = 48, 59%) incorporated both deficit-based and strengths-based indicators. Notably, only 26% of the measures were explicitly grounded in a theoretical framework, and approximately 29% did not report any psychometric properties such as reliability or validity. This review presents an inventory of these measures and highlights the conceptual fragmentation and operational inconsistency in existing child well-being measures, reflecting a lack of consensus on core constructs, domains, and theoretical foundations. Future measurement efforts should be grounded in clearly articulated theoretical models, attend to the conceptual boundaries between constructs, and greater attention to psychometric rigor.