Thyroid-specific questions on work ability showed known-groups validity among Danes with thyroid diseases

Area of Science:

• Endocrinology
• Occupational Health
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Thyroid disease affects a significant portion of the population.
• Work ability is a crucial aspect of quality of life for patients with chronic conditions.
• Existing work ability assessments may not adequately capture thyroid-specific challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify the optimal approach for assessing work ability in thyroid disease patients.
• To evaluate the factor structure, validity, and predictive power of various work ability items.
• To compare thyroid-specific items with generic work ability measures.

Main Methods:

• Developed and tested 24 work ability items in 632 thyroid disease patients.
• Utilized confirmatory factor analyses and logistic regression.
• Compared responses to general population data and assessed known-groups validity.

Main Results:

• A five-factor structure emerged: role physical, role emotional, thyroid-specific limitations, work limitations (unattributed), and work performance.
• Thyroid-specific limitation items demonstrated the highest power in distinguishing clinical groups.
• A single thyroid-specific item predicted future labor market exclusion (OR 5.0).

Conclusions:

• Work ability items directly attributing limitations to thyroid disease are most effective.
• These thyroid-specific items possess strong predictive validity for work ability.
• Generic work ability items remain valuable for general population comparisons.