Rethinking wellbeing measurement: learning from a scale development study with adolescents living with HIV in Zimbabwe

Adolescents living with HIV (ALHIV) in Eastern and Southern Africa experience substantial challenges around medication adherence, treatment, care, mental health and wellbeing. Although interventions such as Zvandiri aim to strengthen mental health and wellbeing to impact HIV treatment outcomes, available measures often focus on negative outcomes or rely on positive psychology instruments developed in high-income settings. These tools may not adequately capture culturally embedded, relational and fluctuating dimensions of wellbeing among ALHIV. We describe the development of the Zvandiri Character Strength (ZCS) scale and draw methodological lessons for culturally grounded wellbeing measureme