Measuring Occupational Well-Being Indicators: Scale Construction and Validation

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health Psychology
• Psychometrics
• Cross-cultural Psychology

Background:

• Assessing occupational well-being (OWB) is crucial for employee health and productivity.
• Existing OWB measures may not be culturally relevant or validated for diverse populations, including Laos.
• There is a need for a psychometrically sound instrument to measure OWB in the Laotian context.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a comprehensive Occupational Well-Being (OWB) scale tailored for the Laotian workforce.
• To ensure the scale captures affective, professional, social, cognitive, psychological, and psychosomatic dimensions of well-being.
• To establish the psychometric properties of the developed OWB scale.

Main Methods:

• Scale development using multiple sampling data from a large Laotian sample (n = 1745).
• Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to identify underlying factors of the OWB scale.
• Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and cross-validation using Stata 19 to assess construct validity and model fit.

Main Results:

• A valid 47-item Occupational Well-Being (OWB-47) scale was successfully developed.
• Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) confirmed a unidimensional structure for the OWB scale.
• The OWB scale demonstrated significant correlations with a six-dimensional model, supporting its convergent validity.

Conclusions:

• The OWB-47 scale is a psychometrically valid and reliable instrument for measuring occupational well-being in Laos.
• The findings support the acceptability of the unidimensional model for assessing OWB in the study population.
• This validated scale can be utilized for research and practical applications to enhance employee well-being in Laos.