Validation of JEM Soignances Job-Exposure Matrix Through Comparison with Self-Reported Exposures Among Healthcare...

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health
• Epidemiology
• Public Health

Background:

• The occupational exposome of healthcare workers is complex and requires accurate assessment tools.
• A novel healthcare-specific job-exposure matrix, JEM Soignances, was developed to address this need.
• Validating new assessment tools against established methods is crucial for reliable occupational health research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the performance of JEM Soignances against self-reported data for assessing occupational exposures in healthcare professionals.
• To evaluate the accuracy of JEM Soignances in estimating known associations between occupational exposures and health outcomes.
• To identify limitations of JEM Soignances, particularly for psychosocial exposures.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from 12,219 healthcare professionals in the CONSTANCES cohort linked to the French National Healthcare Database (SNDS).
• Estimated exposures using JEM Soignances and an alternative version, considering binary and cumulative lifetime exposure.
• Compared JEM Soignances estimates with self-reported data using logistic regression for health outcomes like pain, depressive symptoms, hypertension, cancer, and psychoactive drug use.

Main Results:

• JEM Soignances showed good agreement with self-reported data for organizational (10/16 associations) and biomechanical exposures (11/15 associations).
• Discrepancies for other exposure types generally indicated underestimation by JEM Soignances.
• JEM Soignances significantly underestimated the association between effort-reward imbalance and depressive symptoms, while the alternative version failed to detect it.

Conclusions:

• JEM Soignances is a valid tool for organizational and biomechanical exposures but has limitations for psychosocial exposures.
• The tool often underestimates or misses associations related to psychosocial occupational factors.
• Further validation is required for biological, chemical, and physical exposures assessed by JEM Soignances.