Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ)

Hospital Nurses: (Sasaki, et al., 2020; n = 949; mean age = 33.1 (6.8), female = 806 (84.9%); exclusion criteria: nurses scheduled to retire within 7 months; 22-item version of the JCQ comprised of: a 5-item psychological demand scale, a 9-item decision latitude scale, a 4-item supervisor support scale, and a 4-item coworker support scale; large general hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam; Vietnamese translation of the JCQ)

Mean (SD) of JCQ Scores in a Sample of Hospital Nurses in Vietnam (n = 949)

Hospital Nurses: (Sasaki, et al., 2020)

• Excellent: Cronbach’s alpha = 0.87 for Supervisor support and 0.86 for Coworker support
• Poor internal consistency for other JCQ scales:
  • Decision latitude (α = 0.45)
  • Skill discretion (α = 0.43)
  • Decision authority (α = -0.04)
  • Psychological job demands (α = 0.50)

Convergent validity:

Hospital Nurses: (Sasaki, et al., 2020)

• Poor positive correlations between the Psychological demands scale of the JCQ and both types of overwork (morning or night (r = 0.22) and holiday (r = 0.11), and the three subscales of the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS21):
  • Depressive symptoms (r = 0.17)
  • Anxiety symptoms (r = 0.19)
  • Stress reaction (r = 0.18)
• Poor negative correlations between the Supervisor support scale of the JCQ and both types of overwork (morning or night (r = -0.14) and holiday (r = -0.07), and the three subscales of the DASS21:
  • Depressive symptoms (r = -0.20)
  • Anxiety symptoms (r = -0.16)
  • Stress reaction (r = -0.16)     
• Poor negative correlations between the Coworker support scale of the JCQ and the three subscales of the DASS21:
  • Depressive symptoms (r = -0.20)
  • Anxiety symptoms (r = -0.11)
  • Stress reaction (r = -0.16)     
• Poor negative correlations between the Decision latitude scale of the JCQ and the three subscales of the DASS21:
  • Depressive symptoms (r = -0.15)
  • Anxiety symptoms (r = -0.07)
  • Stress reaction (r = -0.07)     
• Poor positive correlation between the Decision latitude scale of the JCQ and holiday overwork (r = 0.07)

Mental Health: (Clays et al., 2007; n = 2821; men = 1950, mean age = 43.7 (5.0) years and women = 871, mean age = 42.8 (5.0) years; age range = 35-59 years; Belgian sample using data from the Belstress study that included workers in two public administrations (55% of the sample), six private companies (34%), and one bank (11%); assessed at baseline w/follow-up an average of 6.6 years later)

• ≥19 indicates high level of depression symptoms on Center for Epidemiological Studies--Depression Scale (CES-D) (80th percentile in this population)

Mental Health: (Clays et al., 2007)

Mean Baseline Values by Scale

Predictive Validity:

• Mental Health: (Clays et al., 2007, n = 2139 workers free of depression symptoms at baseline)
  • Low decision latitude (OR = 1.90) and high job strain (OR = 1.74) at baseline significantly predicted elevated depression symptoms at follow-up for women
  • The risk of developing depression symptoms among women at follow-up was more than doubled by the presence of isolated strain at baseline (OR = 2.53)

Concurrent Validity:

• Mental Health: (Clays et al., 2007, n = 2139 workers free of depression symptoms at baseline)
  • Significantly more depression symptoms at follow-up for men and women in the groups with high job strain (p = 0.00 for men, 0.01 for women) and isolated strain (p = 0.00 for both)
  • Depression symptoms were significantly associated with low decision latitude among women (X² = 10.98, p = 0.00) and with high job demands (X² = 4.31, p = 0.04) and low social support (X² = 5.61, p = 0.02) among the men

Convergent validity:

• Mental Health: (Clays et al., 2007, n = 2139 (1568 males & 571 females) workers free of depression symptoms at baseline)
  • Significantly more depression symptoms among both men and women with high job strain (Men: X² = 11.72, p = 0.00; Women: X² = 7.89, p = 0.01) and isolated strain (Men: X² = 10.42, p = 0.00; Women: X² = 14.45, p = 0.00)

Discriminant validity:

• Mental Health: (Clays et al., 2007, n = 2139 (1568 males & 571 females) workers free of depression symptoms at baseline)
• Significantly higher proportion of newly developed depression symptoms at mean follow-up of 6.6 years for the women (113 of 571, or 19.8%) than for the men (139 of 1568, or 8.9%), p < 0.001
• High levels of depression at follow-up were significantly associated with low decision latitude at baseline for the women, while this association was borderline significant for the men (p = 0.06)
• Among the women, the risk of developing high levels of depression at follow-up was more than doubled by isolated strain at baseline (OR = 2.53, 95% CI: 1.32-4.86)
• Significant association at follow-up between depression symptoms and low satisfaction with private life (X² = 11.70, p = 0.00), small social network (X² = 5.61, p = 0.02), and external locus of control (X² = 18.69, p = 0.00) among the men

Mental Health: (Clays et al., 2007)

• 2139 workers reported as depression free at baseline and 252 (11.8%) reported high levels of depression at follow-up

Convergent validity:

Mixed Conditions: (Santos, 2017; n = 9511 (Brazilian workers in three occupational categories: petroleum industry workers (n = 489), teachers (n = 4392), and primary healthcare workers (n = 3078), and 1552 urban workers from the city of Feira de Santana in Bahia, Brazil)

• Job Content Questionnaire’s theoretical framework was confirmed across the different groups of workers as latent class analysis identified four response profiles equivalent to those defined by the quadrants of the JCQ. Job types included: 1. High strain jobs (characterized by high psychological demands and low decision latitude), 2. Active jobs (high psychological demands and high decision latitude), 3. Passive jobs (low psychological demands and low decision latitude), and 4. Low strain jobs (low psychological demands and high decision latitude.
  • The latent class analysis extracted all four classes corresponding to the four JCQ job types from the workers in the petroleum industry and from primary healthcare workers
  • Only three of the four classes (omitting passive jobs) were extracted from the teachers and urban workers