Validation of the questionnaire on workplace stressors for hospital workers
Milošević M., Golubić R., Mustajbegović J., Knežević B., Juras K., Bubaš M.
The paper presents factor structure and reliability of the workplace stressor questionnaire for hospital healthcare workers and hopes to further validate and standardise the stress measuring instrument for healthcare workers and thus directly affect the safety of patients and healthcare workers in hospital environments. The study was based on a sample of 1,900 participants aged between 18 and 65, employed in healthcare (nurses, lab technicians and physicians) in the hospitals Dubrava, Zagreb, Sestre milosrdnice and Sveti Duh. All participants voluntarily joined the study. Rate of response was 78%, from the actual sample of 1,481 participants (1,086 nurses and technicians and 395 physicians). In addition to general socio-demographic questions, the questionnaire included 37 workplace stressors referring to work organisation, shift work, opportunities for promotion, education, professional demands, interpersonal communication, communication between the healthcare workers and patients, and fear of dangers and potential harms in healthcare. The participants assessed their experience on the Likert scale (1-5) from 1 = "no stress" to 5 = "great stress". Factor analysis yielded six factors of relatively high reliability of inner consistency (all values of Crombach α exceeded 0.7): Workplace Organisation and Financial Issues, Public Criticism, Dangers and Harms at Workplace, Conficts and Communication at Work, Shift Work, Professional and Intellectual Demands. Individual particles logically explain the structure of the corresponding factors and provide good foundation for further development of the stress measuring instrument at the workplace for hospital healthcare workers. The study contributes to the improvement of a suitable measuring instrument and its implementation in practice, and assists in better recognition and better solutions in the prevention of stress and preservation of safety in hospitals which should help to protect the health of healthcare workers.