Monitoring mental stressors at work with the work health audit instrument factors: Results of validation studies

Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksChapterpeer-review

Authors

To monitor the mental health status of their employees, businesses rely on readymade tools that are easy to use, effective and not only assess their employees’ mental health, but also provide clues about the origins of any difficulties, thus facilitating choice of appropriate interventions. In this chapter, we describe the development and validation of an instrument for measuring mental health at work that we call Work Health Audit Instrument (WHAI) and provide an overview of its reliability and validity. We propose 18 WHAI factors that measure distinct causes for mental health difficulties at work and show that these factors relate to various relevant outcome criteria within businesses, such as work satisfaction, work engagement, irritation, and mental health. Thus, this chapter aims to give employers reasons for using this tool to measure the mental health of their employees. Additionally, we suggest that the WHAI factors can be used in further scientific inquiry, for example as a screening tool for studies on intervention effectiveness.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHealthy at Work : Interdisciplinary Perspectives
EditorsMarkus Wiencke, Mirella Cacace, Sebastian Fischer
Number of pages16
PublisherSpringer International Publishing AG
Publication date01.01.2016
Pages283-298
ISBN (Print)9783319323299
ISBN (Electronic)9783319323312
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.01.2016

    Research areas

  • Confirmatory factor analysis, Exploratory factor analysis, Mental health, Negative emotionality, Work engagement
  • Health sciences