Development of a Questionnaire Measuring Preventive Behaviors at Work

Area of Science:

• Occupational health and safety
• Psychometrics
• Rehabilitation science

Background:

• The need for validated tools to assess preventive behaviors in the workplace is critical for promoting worker well-being and sustainable return to work.
• Existing measures may not adequately capture the nuances of preventive actions relevant to diverse occupational settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a comprehensive French questionnaire to measure preventive behaviors at work.
• To create a tool that can assist occupational therapists and other professionals in rehabilitation settings.

Main Methods:

• A three-step development process involving qualitative and quantitative methods: item generation, expert content validation, and pretesting.
• Item generation included a review of 49 scales, resulting in 172 initial items.
• Content validity was assessed by 14 experts (occupational therapists, researchers, workers) using Content Validity Indices (CVIs), followed by pretesting with occupational therapist-worker dyads.

Main Results:

• The expert validation phase yielded an average CVI of 0.97, with 87.5% of experts deeming the questionnaire comprehensive.
• Following expert review and pretesting, 63 items were deleted, 35 modified, and several additions and format changes were made.
• The final questionnaire, the Échelle de fréquence des comportements préventifs au travail (Frequency Scale of Preventive Behaviors at Work), comprises 61 items.

Conclusions:

• The study successfully developed a 61-item French questionnaire for measuring preventive behaviors at work.
• This tool has the potential to support professionals in fostering healthy and sustainable return-to-work processes after disability.
• Further validation with a larger worker sample is necessary to confirm its metrological properties.