Psychometric Properties of Effort-reward Imbalance Questionnaire among Nurses

Wisarut  Srisintorn; Aporntip  Buapeth

Authors

Wisarut Srisintorn MD, PhD, Lecturer, Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University, Thailand.
Aporntip Buapeth RN, DrPH, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Nursing, Prince of Songkla University, Thailand.

Keywords:

Job Stress, Imbalance, Mental health, Nurses, Occupational stress, Psychological health, Psychometric properties, Rewards, Questionnaire

Abstract

Job stress is an important occupational risk factor for nurses that may affect both their physical and mental health, as well as the health of their patients. The Effort-reward Imbalance Questionnaire is a popular tool that can be used to monitor job stress among nurses. However, several versions of the translated instrument demonstrated different structures of subscales than the original version, and these may affect its validity. Hence, within we report on construct validity of the Thai version of this instrument, and its association with psychological health among nurses working within a university hospital in Southern Thailand. The study design was a cross-sectional survey. The questionnaire measured job strain, using the Thai Effort-reward Imbalance Questionnaire, and psychological health, using the Thai General Health Questionnaire-28. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to evaluate the construct validity. Association between job strain and psychological health was evaluated by logistic regression models.
The analysis included 725 nurses. Factor analysis found that effort and reward both consisted of two subscales, which demonstrated good fit across several goodness of fit indices and acceptable reliability. The prevalence was 34.5% for high job strain, and 19.9% for poor psychological health. The modified high job strain and high overcommitment were statistically significantly associated with poor psychological health, with an odds ratio of 1.74 and 3.42, respectively.
Further study should be conducted to confirm the construct of the Thai Effort-rewards Imbalance Questionnaire among nurses found in this study. Prevalence of job strain and poor psychological health was high which indicates the need for further interventions.

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