title: Application of item response theory to achieve cross-cultural comparability of occupational stress measurement.
abstract: Our objective was to examine cross-cultural comparability of standard scales of the Effort-Reward Imbalance occupational stress scales by item response theory (IRT) analyses. Data were from 20,256 Japanese employees, 1464 Dutch nurses and nurses' aides, 2128 representative employees from post-communist countries, 963 Swedish representative employees, 421 Chinese female employees, 10,175 employees of the French national gas and electric company and 734 Spanish railroad employees, sanitary personnel and telephone operators. The IRT likelihood ratio model was used for differential item functioning (DIF) and differential test functioning (DTF) analyses. Despite the existence of DIF, most comparisons did not show discernible differences in the relations between Effort-Reward total score and level of the underlying trait across cultural groups. In the case that DTF was suspected, excluding an item with significant DIF improved the comparability. The full cross-cultural comparability of Effort-Reward Imbalance scores can be achieved with the help of IRT analysis.
authors.affiliation: Occupational Health Training Center, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Kitakyushu, Japan. tsutsumi@med.uoeh-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Akizumi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tsutsumi
authors.forename: Noboru
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Iwata
authors.forename: Naotaka
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: de Jonge
authors.forename: Hynek
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pikhart
authors.forename: Juan Antonio
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Fernández-López
authors.forename: Liying
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Peter
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Knutsson
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Niedhammer
authors.forename: Norito
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kawakami
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Siegrist
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods*; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology; D012015:Reference Standards; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult