The Work-Health-Check (WHC): a brief new tool for assessing psychosocial stress in the workplace.

OBJECTIVE: Brief, psychometrically robust questionnaires assessing work-related psychosocial stressors are lacking. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of a brief new questionnaire for assessing sources of work-related psychosocial stress.

PARTICIPANTS: Managers, blue- and white-collar workers (n= 628 at measurement point one, n=459 at measurement point two), sampled from an online panel of a German marketing research institute.

METHODS: We either developed or identified appropriate items from existing questionnaires for ten scales, which are conceptually based in work stress models and reflected either work-related demands or resources. Factorial structure was evaluated by confirmatory factor analyses (CFA). Scale reliability was assessed by Cronbach's Alpha, and test-retest; correlations with work-related efforts demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity for the demand and resource scales, respectively. Scale correlations with health indicators tested criterion validity.

RESULTS: All scales had satisfactory reliability (Cronbach's Alpha: 0.74-0.93, retest reliabilities: 0.66-0.81). CFA supported the anticipated factorial structure. Significant correlations between job-related efforts and demand scales (mean r=0.44) and non-significant correlations with the resource scales (mean r=0.07) suggested good convergent and discriminant validity, respectively. Scale correlations with health indicators demonstrated good criterion validity.

CONCLUSION: The WHC appears to be a brief, psychometrically robust instrument for assessing work-related psychosocial stressors.