Psychometric Characteristics of the Hebrew Version of the Professional Quality-of-Life Scale

Exposure to human suffering may have ramifications for the professional quality of life (ProQol) of palliative care teams. The ProQol scale was designed to assess both negative and positive work-related outcomes and has been used recently for the evaluation of work-related outcomes among palliative care workers. However, the assessment of ProQol among Israeli hospice workers is scant.

The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties and the factor structure of the Hebrew version of the 30-item ProQol questionnaire.

The study population included 1100 health care providers including physicians, nurses, and social workers in primary health care and palliative care settings.

A total of 380 workers participated in the study, representing a response rate of 34.5%. The confirmatory factor analysis did not show an adequate "goodness to fit." Using a factor coefficient of 0.35 or greater for inclusion, the exploratory factor analysis revealed a 23-item solution, loaded onto three factors: compassion satisfaction, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout (BU). The internal consistency subscales were 0.87, 0.82, and 0.69, respectively. The subscales showed good convergent and exploratory validity because of significant correlations with measures that examine BU, work engagement, and peritraumatic dissociative experiences.

Although the findings are consistent with those from studies in other languages, they are different from the original 30-item three-factor structure reported by Stamm. The Hebrew version of the compassion satisfaction subscale was found to be reliable and valid for studies among health care professionals, but further research is needed to improve the BU and secondary traumatic stress subscales.