Development and testing of the Workplace Stressors Assessment Questionnaire.

Abstract

This research was aimed at developing a self-completed questionnaire for use in the assessment of stress-related factors at a US government high-tech worksite. A literature review was performed to identify existing scales of workplace stress and strain. An initial pool of potential items was developed and assessed for content validity by using focus groups. This item pool was reduced to 38 items covering eight domains based on focus group results. A pilot study was conducted to examine the measurement properties of selected items and scales. Findings from the pilot study led to the 22-item Workplace Stressors Assessment Questionnaire, which includes six domains/scales that exhibited satisfactory measurement properties. The Workplace Stressors Assessment Questionnaire is a relatively short and psychometrically sound measure that can be used to systematically monitor employees' perceptions of workplace-related stressors.