Assessing the psychosocial work environment in the health care setting: translation and psychometric testing of the French and Italian Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaires (COPSOQ) in a large sample of health professionals in Switzerland

• DOI: 10.1186/s12913-022-07924-4
• Publication Date: 2022-05-06T11:10:04Z
• Authors: Karin Anne Peter; Christoph Golz; Reto Arthur Bürgin; Matthias Nübling; Christian Voirol; Simeon Joel Zürcher; Sabine Hahn
• Keywords: Measurement Invariance

Abstract Background Measuring work-related stress in a reliable way is important the development of appropriate prevention and intervention strategies. Especially multilingual studies use comparable instruments crucial. Therefore, aim this study was to translate selected scales single items from German version Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ) into French Italian psychometrically test them sample health professionals. Methods This used cross-sectional data professionals at 163 randomised organisations Switzerland. Selected COPSOQ items/scales were backwards- forwards- translated cross-culturally adapted Italian. Reliability assessed with Cronbach alpha intraclass correlation coefficients, construct validity confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) structural equation modelling as well comparative fit index. Results Responses 12,754 included analysis. Of overall 24 scales, 20 version, 19 17 attained sufficient internal consistency threshold 0.7 for Cronbach’s alpha. Predominantly high loadings on scale level are reported (> 0.35), good satisfactory values RMSEA below 0.1, SRMR 0.08 CFI above 0.95. For 10 out 15 invariance revealed significant difference regarding psychological constructs across language versions. Conclusions The psychometric properties verify underlying theoretical model questionnaire, which some extent three variance, four showed large differences, implying that revision needed better comparability. Potential cultural issues regional differences may have led variance different reliability scores per One known influencing culture, should be considered development. Moreover, emerging topics such digitization further questionnaire.