The Multifaceted Lifestyle Satisfaction Scale (MLSS): psychometric properties of an interview schedule for assessing personal satisfaction of adults with limited intelligence.
The MLSS interview reliably charts life satisfaction in adults with ID, but briefer or proxy tools have since superseded it.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team built a new interview called the MLSS. It asks adults with intellectual disability how happy they are with home, work, friends, and free time.
They tested the questions with a small group to see if answers stayed the same when asked twice. They also checked if staff ratings matched what the adults said.
What they found
The MLSS gave steady scores across two talks, so it is reliable.
Answers lined up partly with staff views, showing only partial validity. The tool works, yet you still need caretaker input to catch self-report limits.
How this fits with other research
Lucas-Carrasco et al. (2012) later trimmed the job down to a 5-item SWLS. Their short scale kept the good reliability but took far less time, so it has mostly replaced the longer MLSS.
Laugeson et al. (2014) moved the goalposts further. For adults who cannot speak, they swapped self-report for a 95-item proxy scale. Their San Martín tool keeps the psychometric rigor started by the MLSS but switches the data source from client to caregiver.
Johnson et al. (2014) agree on method: adults with ID can give valid answers if you help them. They paired interviews with step counters and got solid data, backing the MLSS idea that assistance beats guessing.
Why it matters
You now have choices. Use the quick SWLS for verbal adults, the San Martín proxy for profound ID, and keep the MLSS when you want a full life-domain chat. Whichever you pick, always cross-check with staff or devices to guard against sweetened answers.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of this research was to assess the psychometric properties of the Multifaceted Lifestyle Satisfaction Scale (MLSS), an interview structured primarily for individuals with mental retardation to assess their professed satisfaction with their living arrangements and communities, their personal relationships, their recreation and leisure, their employment, and their degree of self-direction. Reliabilities, assessed as internal consistency coefficients, test-retest correlations, and interrater agreements were above .60 on cross-validation samples. Validity was supported through correlations with caretaker predictions of respondents' satisfactions, but not by the Quality of Life Questionnaire, an objective instrument to index quality of life in four dimensions: lifestyle satisfaction, production, independence, and integration. Regression analyses indicated moderate theory-based correlations between MLSS subscales and other variables. In sum, the MLSS appears to be a reliable and valid scale to measure personal satisfaction through the responses of consumers in areas of living arrangement, friendships, recreation, employment, and self-direction.
Research in developmental disabilities, 1993 · doi:10.1016/0891-4222(93)90032-f