A Revised Occupational Stress Measure for Popular Musicians: Pilot Test of Validity and Reliability

Popular (i.e., nonclassical) musicians have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide than the general population. Occupational and financial stress have been suggested to be social determinants of musician mental health burden. A pilot study was conducted to assess the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of a revised measure of popular musician occupational stress and compare the results to those of other, previously validated instruments used in the same survey.

An online survey was emailed to a convenience sample of 150 musicians who had formerly accessed mental health services through a non-profit organization in Austin, Texas. The survey included a revised Musician Occupational Stress Scale (MOSS), a measure of financial stress, and instruments to screen for clinically significant depression, anxiety, and alcohol misuse.

Forty musicians (26.7%) completed the initial survey and 19 completed a repeat survey 2 weeks later for the test-retest comparison. Internal consistency coefficients for individual instruments ranged from 0.86-0.92. The piloted MOSS demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach's α=0.91; one-sided 95% CI ≥0.88) and test-retest reliability (r=0.86; p<0.0001). The MOSS also showed reasonable construct validity, correlating well with a single question of perceived occupational stress (ρ=0.46; p<0.001) over career satisfaction (ρ=-0.09; p>0.05).

The individual, construct-specific measures included in this survey all demonstrated good internal consistency and test-retest reliability on examination. While the results are preliminary due to the small sample size, the MOSS psychometrically performed at a level equal to or better than other widely used and well-validated measures included in this survey.