Description and application of a method to quantify criterion-related cut-off values for questionnaire-based psychosocial risk assessment

Mathias Diebig,Peter Angerer

doi:10.1007/s00420-020-01597-4

Abstract

PurposeThe psychosocial risk assessment is a systematic intervention process for organizations that aims at improving psychosocial working conditions as well as employee health. Based on a screening of working conditions, interventions to reduce risk factors are implemented and evaluated. What is missing for most screening instruments however are cut-off values to categorize working conditions into uncritical vs. critical, whereas the latter indicates an elevated risk for illness. To estimate and evaluate cut-off values, two studies were conducted using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis.MethodsIn Study 1, a sample of 229 participants answered an online survey on depression (PHQ) and psychosocial working conditions using a questionnaire (DYNAMIK) that covers five factors important to workers' health: workload, boundary permeability, participation, leader support, and usability. Using the ROC analysis, criterion-related cut-off values were generated to predict depressive symptoms. In Study 2, these cut-off values were used to classify working conditions in the two categories of ‘critical’ and ‘uncritical’ in an independent sample (N = 295). It was tested for differences in the results of the two groups concerning the direct criterion of depressive symptoms and the indirect criterion of effort-reward imbalance.ResultsIn Study 1, cut-off values differed between the five scales and showed different values for sensitivity and specificity. In Study 2, participants exposed to critical working conditions reported more depressive symptoms as well as an effort-reward imbalance.ConclusionsCut-off values are useful to identify working conditions as either critical or uncritical. This knowledge is important when deciding which working conditions should be optimized within the context of psychosocial risk assessment.

Highlights

The psychosocial risk assessment is a systematic intervention process for organizations that is aimed at improving psychosocial working conditions and employee health and well-being (Rick and Briner 2000)
A frequent problem within the process of psychosocial risk assessment is the determination of priority: Which interventions that optimize working conditions have the highest priority in relation to the detected risks
Our research model covers direct links between our five dimensions of adverse psychosocial work characteristics with depression as well as an indirect relation via effortreward imbalance

Summary

Introduction

The psychosocial risk assessment is a systematic intervention process for organizations that is aimed at improving psychosocial working conditions and employee health and well-being (Rick and Briner 2000). A frequent problem within the process of psychosocial risk assessment is the determination of priority: Which interventions that optimize working conditions have the highest priority in relation to the detected risks This means that the observed working conditions must be ranked according to their potential health risk as well as the number of people involved. To conclude, existing approaches to classify working conditions as critical vs uncritical are generally theory-driven and not empirically determined for instruments used within the psychosocial risk assessment. These classification systems summarize various aspects of working conditions and do not provide information on a more detailed dimensional level. It has been shown that all scales of the DYNAMIK questionnaire enable a thorough screening of important stressors within the psychosocial risk assessment (Diebig et al 2020)

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