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Published on: April 23, 2014
Development and initial validation of a multi-domain self-report measure of work functioning
Sarah Ring-Kurtz1, Mary Beth Connolly Gibbons, John E Kurtz
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
The Work History Inventory (WHI) is a new, reliable tool to measure work functioning across employment, school, and home. It effectively captures changes in performance and interpersonal skills after psychotherapy.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
- Psychometrics
Background:
- Assessing work functioning is crucial for evaluating treatment outcomes.
- Existing measures may lack flexibility across diverse work domains (employment, school, home).
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate the Work History Inventory (WHI), a self-report measure of work functioning.
- To assess the reliability and validity of the WHI in patients undergoing psychotherapy and community controls.
Main Methods:
- The WHI was administered to 185 psychotherapy patients and 110 community controls.
- Reliability was assessed using internal consistency and test-retest methods.
- Validity was examined through correlations with symptom measures and another work functioning scale.
Main Results:
- The WHI Total score and its subscales (Performance, Interpersonal) showed adequate to good reliability.
- WHI scores demonstrated moderate correlations with symptom measures and strong correlations with a comparable work functioning measure.
- Significant improvements in WHI Total and Performance scores were observed following psychotherapy.
Conclusions:
- The Work History Inventory (WHI) is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing work functioning.
- The WHI effectively measures treatment-related changes in work functioning across multiple domains.
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