A Critical Review of Psychosocial Hazard Measures
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HSE Health & Safety Executive A critical review of psychosocial hazard measures Prepared by The Institute for Employment Studies for the Health and Safety Executive CONTRACT RESEARCH REPORT 356/2001 HSE Health & Safety Executive A critical review of psychosocial hazard measures Jo Rick, Rob B Briner, Kevin Daniels, Sarah Perryman and Andrew Guppy The Institute for Employment Studies Mantell Building University of Sussex Brighton BN1 9RF United Kingdom Health and safety legislation requires that employers regularly conduct risk assessments to identify what in their workplace is a potential hazard to (ie could harm) employee health. The idea of risk assessment for physical hazards is well-established. More recently attention has focused on the assessment of risk from psychosocial hazards and in doing so measures have been developed or adopted from research to assess the prevalence of workplace stressors. Whilst much research has been done on stress, there exists no systematic overview of the different types of stressor measures available in the UK, nor is there any consistently recorded information about their relative merits. This report seeks to fill that gap by identifying a wide range of commonly used measures, assessing the research evidence available on them and providing an overview of their relative strengths. Conclusions are drawn about the state of knowledge in this area and issues for practice and research. This report and the work it describes were funded by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Its contents, including any opinions and/or conclusions expressed, are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect HSE policy. HSE BOOKS © Crown copyright 2001 Applications for reproduction should be made in writing to: Copyright Unit, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, St Clements House, 2-16 Colegate, Norwich NR3 1BQ First published 2001 ISBN 0 7176 2064 6 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. ii The Project Team A large team of contributors were involved at different stages of this report. Details of the full project team and their affiliations are as follows: Rob Briner, Senior Lecturer in Organizational Psychology, Birkbeck College, University of London. Polly Carroll, Occupational Psychology Branch, The Employment Service. Kevin Daniels, formerly Lecturer in Organizational Behaviour, Sheffield University Management School, now Reader in Occupational Psychology, University of Nottingham. Andrew Guppy, Professor of Applied Psychology, Middlesex University. Chris Kelly, Principal Psychologist, Work Psychology Section, Health and Safety Laboratories. Sarah Perryman, Research Officer, the Institute for Employment Studies. Jo Rick, Principal Research Fellow, the Institute for Employment Studies. Claire Tyers, Research Fellow, the Institute for Employment Studies. The Institute for Employment Studies The Institute for Employment Studies is an independent, apolitical, international centre of research and consultancy in human resource issues. It works closely with employers in the manufacturing, service and public sectors, government departments, agencies, professional and employee bodies, and foundations. For over 30 years the Institute has been a focus of knowledge and practical experience in employment and training policy, the operation of labour markets and human resource planning and development. IES is a not-for-profit organisation which has a multidisciplinary staff of over 50. IES expertise is available to all organisations through research, consultancy, publications and the Internet. IES aims to help bring about sustainable improvements in employment policy and human resource management. IES achieves this by increasing the understanding and improving the practice of key decision makers in policy bodies and employing organisations. iii iv Acknowledgements Our thanks go to the many people who helped in the preparation of this report. In particular to Clare Duffy and Sue Waller our project managers at HSE for there continued support and guidance. Thanks also go to Caroline Beaumont and Becky Lincoln for their work in preparing the final draft of this document. v vi Contents 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Research objectives 2 1.2 The risk management framework 2 1.3 What do organisations do? 3 1.4 What psychosocial hazard measures are available? 5 2. Effectiveness of Measures of Psychosocial Hazards (Stressors) 7 2.1 What are measures of psychosocial hazards? 7 2.2 Why do organisations measure psychosocial hazards? 8 2.3 How are they used? 9 2.4 Does measuring psychosocial hazards work or help? 10 3. Methodology 13 3.1 Identifying measures of psychosocial hazards 14 3.2 Targeting appropriate material 18 3.3 Search and review process 19 3.4 Search results on tool names 19 3.5 Search results on citations 21 3.6 Final search results 23 3.7 Review procedure 23 3.8 A brief overview of the psychometric criteria 25 3.9 Development of a pro forma to capture assessments 28 3.10 Assessment criteria and information sought 28 4. Review of Main Measures 29 4.1 Introduction to, and overview of, the sources of evidence used 29 4.2 Overview of the occupational stress research field 30 4.3 Typical hazard measures 33 4.4 Theory and validity 33 4.5 Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) 36 4.6 Job Stress Survey (JSS) 39 4.7 Karasek Demands and Control/Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) 42 4.8 Other Measures of demand and control 45 4.9 The Whitehall II studies 48 4.10 Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI) Sources of Pressure Scale 50 vii 4.11 Rizzo and House Measures of Role Conflict and Role Ambiguity 56 5. Information About Other Measures 61 5.1 Effort-Reward Imbalance 62 5.2 NHS Measures 63 5.3 NIOSH Generic Job Stress Questionnaire 64 5.4 Occupational Stress Inventory 65 5.5 Pressure Management Indicator 66 5.6 Role Hassles Index 67 5.7 Stress Audits 69 5.8 Stress Diagnostic Survey 70 5.9 Stress Incident Record 71 5.10 The Stress Profile 72 5.11 Work Environment Scale 73 6. Conclusions and Recommendations 75 6.1 Review objectives and method 75 6.2 What evidence was available? 76 6.3 What measures are available? 77 6.4 Evidence for reliability 78 6.5 Evidence for validity 79 6.6 The utility of hazard measures 81 6.7 Recommendations 81 Appendix 1: Psychometric Criteria for Assessing Psychosocial Hazard Measures 85 Appendix 2: Single Study Pro Forma 107 Appendix 3: Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis 109 Bibliography 113 viii 1. Introduction There is a rapidly growing body of research on the management and control of workplace stress. Some of it has attempted to categorise the types of stress management initiatives organisations can undertake. These categorisations often include the ideas of prevention at source, providing individuals with skills which may help them deal with stress problems, or treating those who have been harmed (see, for example, Ivancevich, Matteson, Freedman and Phillips, 1990). One approach which has gained in popularity and which may help organisations determine the kind of stress intervention to undertake has been to try and measure workplace stressors through the use of self report questionnaires. In effect, this review is concerned with the measurement of workplace stressors. Throughout the document the term ‘psychosocial hazards’ is used to refer to work characteristics which could equally be termed ‘stressors’ or ‘sources of stress’. Why then use ‘psychosocial hazards’? The rationale has three parts: l ‘Stress’ is generally acknowledged to be a broad umbrella term for a wide range of different experiences and conditions. It is generally accepted to be a vague concept consistently beset by problems of definition. In contrast the focus of this study is very clearly that of the psychosocial aspects of work that have the potential to adversely impact an individual’s mental and physical well-being. l Stress tends to bring with it a plethora of sometimes unhelpful ideas and expectations about stress management, whereas the legislation which governs psychological health at work and the requirements it places on employers is concerned specifically with risk assessment and the monitoring and control of hazards l The HSE has done much to clearly establish a risk assessment framework in relation to physical hazards. This framework when applied to psychosocial hazards helps to make explicit the steps which may also be involved in assessing workplace risk. See, for example, Cox, Leather and Cox (2000). In May 2000, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) commissioned this study to look at what is known about the 1 quality of psychosocial hazard measures. This chapter looks first at the objectives for the research and then at the broader research context for the study. 1.1 Research objectives The purpose of the research is to provide a critical review of current psychosocial hazard measures. The research was funded by the HSE because whilst there is a large and fast growing literature on stress, there is no systematic overview of the numerous measures of psychosocial hazards, nor is there consistently recorded information about their relative merits: Hence the need to take stock of the activity in this area and draw conclusions about its relevance to employers and others who may wish to use such measures. To do this, the research needed to fulfil three tasks. First it needed to identify the methods or measures currently used to assess psychosocial hazards in the workplace. Second, having identified existing approaches to psychosocial hazard measurement, the major part of the research needed to provide a comprehensive review of each of the measures identified. This should include where appropriate: l evidence of reliability (ie the consistency of measurement) against recognised standards l evidence of validity (ie the meaningfulness or relevance of measurement) in relation to risk assessment (identification of real hazards) against recognised standards.