Saf Health Work.  2018 Jun;9(2):224-231. 10.1016/j.shaw.2018.02.004.

Developing a Basic Scale for Workers' Psychological Burden from the Perspective of Occupational Safety and Health

• Kim KW
• Lim HC
• Park JH
• Park SG
• Park YJ
• Cho HH

• KMID: 2415426
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.shaw.2018.02.004

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Organizations are pursing complex and diverse aims to generate higher profits. Many workers experience high work intensity such as workload and work pressure in this organizational environment. Especially, psychological burden is a commonly used term in workplace of Republic of Korea. This study focused on defining the psychological burden from the perspective of occupational safety and health and tried to develop a scale for psychological burden.
METHODS
The 48 preliminary questionnaire items for psychological burden were prepared by a focus group interview with 16 workers through the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire II and Mindful Awareness Attention Scale. The preliminary items were surveyed with 572 workers, and exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and correlation analysis were conducted for a new scale.
RESULTS
As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, five factors were extracted: organizational activity, human error, safety and health workload, work attitude, and negative self-management. These factors had significant correlations and reliability, and the stability of the model for validity was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis.
CONCLUSION
The developed scale for psychological burden can measure workers' psychological burden in relation to safety and health. Despite some limitations, this study has applicability in the workplace, given the relatively small-sized questionnaire.

Keyword

COPSOQ II; Job stress; Psychological burden; Workload

MeSH Terms

Focus Groups
Human Activities
Occupational Health*
Republic of Korea
Self Care