Construction And Validation Of Occupational Stress Index For Chinese Military Personnels

With the quickened pace of work and reform pace of military, Chinese militarypersonnels are suffering from intensive occupational stress. How to evaluate theoccupational stress condition of Chinese military personnels objectively, to maintain thelevel of performance under stress and to effectively tackle the psychological disorders ofChinese military personnels induced by occupational stress are problems faced by military,which needs to be solved immediately. Yet, a comprehensive military occupational stressscale covering occupational stressor and occupational stress response component is stilllacking. Making efforts to measure occupational stressor and occupational stress responserespectively, and to construct a scientific and objective indicator of the militaryoccupational stress have become a fundamental task in the field of military occupationalstress. Latest articles regarding military occupational stress and measuring instruments ofoccupational stress were collected and reviewed. The preliminary version of occupationalstressor scale and occupational stress response scale for Chinese military personnels haveevolved after depth interviews and surveys conducted with military personnels.The formalversion of occupational stressor scale and occupational stress response scale for Chinesemilitary personnels have developed after a standard procedure of scale development.Viatransformation and combination of the scores of the two scales,the occupational stressindex for Chinese military personnels has at last been constructed and validated.The mainresults of this research are as follows:1. The seven factors of occupational stressor scale for Chinese military personnels areroutine work, problem of role, career development, interpersonal relationship,organizational climate, marriage&family and economic stress. Cronbach’s alpha of thetotal scale is0.953, and Cronbach’s alphas of the7factors vary from0.821to0.891.Composite reliabilities of the7dimensions vary from0.887to0.932. The test-retestreliability of occupational stressor scale for Chinese military personnels is0.717(P<0.001,at two weeks). Correlation between the scale and criterions vary from0.545to0.648(Ps<0.001).2. The three factors of occupational stress response scale for Chinese militarypersonnels are physical response, psychological response and behavioral response.Cronbach’s alpha of the total scale is0.883, and Cronbach’s alphas of the3factors varyfrom0.608to0.862. Composite reliabilities of the3dimensions vary from0.686to0.922.The test-retest reliability of occupational stress response scale for Chinese militarypersonnels is0.731(P<0.001, at two weeks). Correlation between the scale and criterionsvary from0.416to0.578(Ps<0.001). Incremental Validity of occupational stress responsescale over occupational stressor scale is△R2=0.087（P<0.001）。3. Shapiro-Wilk test and Shapiro-Francia test show that both scores of occupationalstressor scale for Chinese military personnels （34.63±21.26）and occupational stressresponse scale for Chinese military personnels（16.21±8.40）do not follow normaldistribution（P<0.001）. The calculation formulas for military occupational stress index are as follows: Z合成=Z压力源+Z压力反应， Index=10Z合成+50； which Z压力源denotes the Z scores of occupational stressor scale for Chinese military personnels, Z压力反应denotes the Z scores of occupational stress response scale for Chinese militarypersonnels, and―Index‖denotes the military occupational stress index.4. Descriptive statistics of military occupational stress index are x=49.776, s=17.593，min=14.399, max=116.826, Skewness=0.295and Kurtosis=2.730. Correlation betweenthe military occupational stress index and criterions vary from0.556to0.691(Ps<0.001).Military occupational stress index is significantly correlated with scores of occupationalstressor scale for Chinese military personnels (r=0.880, P<0.001). Military occupationalstress index is significantly correlated with scores of occupational stress response scale forChinese military personnels (r=0.878, P<0.001). The test-retest reliability of occupationalstress index constructed is0.765(P<0.001, at two weeks).The conclusions of present study are as follows:1. The occupational stressor scale for Chinese military personnels and occupationalstress response scale for Chinese military personnels are valid, reliable, and have goodpsychometric properties, indicating its promising application to evaluate occupationalstress of military personnels.2. Military occupational stress index covers the content of occupational stressor andoccupational stress response. This study has demonstrated that it’s an objective andconsistent method to measure occupational stress of Chinese military personnels.