Psychometric properties of a short version of the Job Anxiety Scale

Abstract

Background: Occupational stress and specifically job anxiety are crucial factors in determining health outcomes, job satisfaction as well as performance. In order to assess this phenomenon, the Job Anxiety Scale is one of the instruments available. It consists of 70 items that are clustered in 14 subscales and five dimensions. The aim of this paper is to create a more efficient, short version of the Job Anxiety Scale, while retaining the five dimensions, and to assess its psychometric properties. Methods: The sample consists of 991 – mostly psychosomatic – patients from two different clinics. We applied methods of factor analysis and bivariate correlations to explore and test factor structure and the nomological net of related constructs. Results: After reducing the item pool via the construction of subsets and tests using ant-colony-optimization, a 15- item version of the Job Anxiety Scale evinced very good psychometric properties. We found very good model fit, high internal consistency, and invariance across participant age and sex. It displayed improved discriminant validity compared to the original scale, and we found the expected pattern of convergent correlations. Conclusions: With this short version of the Job Anxiety Scale, researchers can assess job related worries in a much more economic manner. The questionnaire is particularly useful in large-scale surveys and/or in samples that struggle with extensive assessments. Keywords: Job anxiety scale, JAS, Job related anxiety, Screening instrument, Scale construction, Job assessment