Development of a protective mental work demands questionnaire

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Occupational Health Psychology
• Gerontology

Background:

• Workplace mental demands are linked to cognitive function and dementia risk later in life.
• A systematic assessment tool for protective mental work demands (PMWDs) is currently lacking.
• Understanding these demands is crucial for promoting cognitive health across the lifespan.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a questionnaire for assessing protective mental work demands (PMWDs).
• To identify key components of PMWDs relevant to cognitive health.
• To provide a tool for researchers and clinicians to evaluate workplace cognitive protective factors.

Main Methods:

• Instrument development followed international scientific standards, including conceptualization, pretesting, and validation.
• Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used for validation.
• Multivariate regression analyses examined the relationship between PMWDs and cognitive functioning in 346 participants.

Main Results:

• PCA of the item pool yielded five concepts, from which a final questionnaire with four components was derived.
• The final PMWD-Questionnaire includes Mental Workload, Verbal Demands, Information Load, and Extended Job Control.
• Reliability analyses showed good internal consistency for Information Load (Cronbach's α = .83) and Extended Job Control (Cronbach's α = .83).

Conclusions:

• The developed PMWD-Questionnaire effectively assesses protective mental demands at work.
• Information processing demands and job control are identified as primary components influencing cognitive health in aging.
• Further longitudinal studies are needed to confirm construct validity concerning dementia risk.