Face, content, criterion and construct validity assessment of a newly developed tool to assess and classify work–related stress (TAWS– 16)

PLOS ONE RESEARCH ARTICLE Face, content, criterion and construct validity assessment of a newly developed tool to assess and classify work–related stress (TAWS– 16) Runalika Roy1☯, Gautham Melur Sukumar ID1☯*, Mariamma Philip2‡, Gururaj Gopalakrishna1‡ a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 1 Department of Epidemiology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, 2 Department of Biostatistics, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, Karnataka, India ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. ‡ MP and GG also contributed equally to this work. * Abstract OPEN ACCESS Citation: Roy R, Sukumar GM, Philip M, Gopalakrishna G (2023) Face, content, criterion and construct validity assessment of a newly developed tool to assess and classify work–related stress (TAWS– 16). PLoS ONE 18(1): e0280189. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280189 Editor: Sebsibe Tadesse, Ethiopian Public Health Institute, ETHIOPIA Introduction As work-stress, is associated with Non Communicable Diseases, and decreased work productivity, health and economic benefits are expected from periodic work-stress screening among employees using valid and reliable tools. Tool to Assess and classify Work Stress (TAWS– 16) was developed to overcome limitations in existing work-stress assessment tools in India. This study aims to test face, content, criterion and construct validity of TAWS– 16 in a sample of managerial-supervisory employees. Received: July 21, 2022 Accepted: December 22, 2022 Published: January 6, 2023 Peer Review History: PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process; therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. The editorial history of this article is available here: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280189 Copyright: © 2023 Roy et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Methods Nine domain experts rated face and content validity of TAWS– 16. Content validity was measured by Content Validity Indices (I-CVI, S-CVI) and Modified Kappa statistics. Empirical validity was tested by analysing data reported from 356 Information Technology (IT) professionals wherein Exploratory Factor Analysis was conducted for the assessment of Construct Validity. Self-reported data was collected in an unlinked and anonymous manner using a web-link, which was emailed to the study subjects, after initial introductory telephone or personal conversation. Criterion Validity was tested against stress sub-scale of DASS– 21. This study was approved by NIMHANS ethics committee. Results Findings revealed that TAWS– 16 has good face validity. The content validity is acceptable (CVI = 0.829). Construct Validity is appropriate as 60.8% of the total variance was explained by the factors identified in our study. Criterion Validity was moderate (Kappa Value 0.208) due to inappropriate work-stress instrument for comparison with TAWS– 16. PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280189 January 6, 2023 1 / 11 PLOS ONE Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Tool to assess and classify work-related stress - Validity assessment Conclusions Overall, TAWS– 16 demonstrated good face, content and construct validity. It measures work-stressors, coping abilities and psycho-somatic symptoms associated with work-stress. We recommend use of TAWS– 16 for periodic screening and classification of work-stress among employees. Introduction Stress in harmful proportions poses a risk for Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs), mental morbidity, workplace injuries and their sequelae, resulting in increased health care costs and decreased work productivity [1–12]. Work-related stress is the response people may have when presented with work demands and pressures (work stressors) that are not matched to their knowledge and abilities and which challenge their ability to cope (WHO) [13]. Low job security, excessive work demand, lack of job control, monotonous work, low organisational support, adverse physical working conditions, strained inter-personal relationships at work, role conflict, role ambiguity and work-life imbalance are commonly observed work stressors [4, 14]. Employees exposed to such chronic work-stressors are also likely to develop NCDs over time. Census reports estimate that there are nearly 530 million workers in India [15] of which 8–9% are in organized sector [16]. Among the organized workplaces, service sector (Information Technology, Business Transformation [BT], Business Process Outsourcing [BPO] and others.) is rapidly growing and has relatively younger workforce, working in globally competitive and stressful work environment. NCDs and NCD risk factors are emerging as leading health priorities among these employees. The COVID– 19 pandemic has added newer work dimensions and its associated risk factors. Available studies indicate that work-stress among IT professionals ranged between 5–51% [1] with increased prevalence among employees in managerial role (55%) [6]. However, these studies differed in stress assessment tools, sample size, worker profile, geographical location and time-periods. Lack of standard instruments to specifically assess work-related stressors is a key limitation in these studies. In occupational health practice, regular and periodic screening for work-related stress is limited due to lack of tools specific to measure work–related stressors and stress. Commonly used tools capture stress-in-general and are not specific to work-stressors, are too lengthy and not validated for Indian workplaces. These tools do not account for coping abilities of employees or consider their experience of psychosomatic symptoms, to identify and classify workstress experience of employees. Copyright and costs of study instruments from high income countries also limit application in low resource settings and in research [17]. With stress and its concomitant health and economic issues expected to rise in India, clearly there is an unmet need for a brief, valid, reliable and easy-to-use tool to identify and categorise work-stress. Towards this direction, a work-stress assessment tool (Tool to assess and classify work-stress i.e., TAWS– 16) [18] has been developed to overcome limitations of existing tools. This study presents the face, content, criterion and construct validity of TAWS– 16. Materials and methods This validation study was conducted on a convenient sample of 356 managerial (...truncated)