Psychometric stress risk assessments: proceed with caution

• Date: 23 January 2025
• Pages: 101-117
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWHM-12-2022-0203
• Published date: 23 January 2025
• Subject Matter: Health & social care,Healthcare management,HR & organizational behaviour,Human resource policy,Employee welfare
• Author: John Hudson,Ashley Weinberg

Psychometric stress risk assessments:

proceed with caution

John Hudson

Department of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK, and

Ashley Weinberg

Department of Psychology, University of Salford, Manchester, UK

Abstract

Purpose –Despite extensive psychometric research on psychosocial assessment tools, comparatively little

explores the practical application and evaluation of these tools for prioritising workplace psychosocial risks.

This paper addresses this gap by illustrating the use of one popular, freely available measure in an applied risk

assessment context, alongside qualitative data, highlighting questions and challenges for organisations.

Design/methodology/approach –1,425 employees from a UK public-sector organisation completed the

Management Standards Indicator Tool (MSIT), General Health Questionnaire, and open-text questions about

stress-related and positive aspects of work. Three approaches to analysing MSIT data were adopted: descriptive

statistics, multiple regression and risk calculation, complemented by analysis of open-text qualitative data.

Findings –Demands and change were ranked prominently by each method; however, there were major

inconsistencies, for example, relationships ranked first using one method but sixth by another. Qualitative

comments broadly reflected quantitative analyses, with demands mentioned most frequently, but highlighted

issues and nuances not covered by the MSIT.

Research limitations/implications –Only a selection of potential approaches to analysis is considered here,

future research to support employers with analysis and evaluation of quantitative risk assessment data would be

valuable.

Practical implications –Risk-assessors’ choice of analysis could have major implications for where employers

direct resources, supporting existing guidance to avoid sole reliance on quantitative surveys for risk assessment.

Originality/value –This paper builds on the necessary–but not sufficient–psychometric foundations of risk

assessment tools, integrating qualitative data and illustrating questions and challenges in applying them for their

stated purpose.

Keywords Stress, Psychosocial work environment, Management Standards Indicator Tool,

Psychosocial hazards, Stress risk assessment, Stress risk evaluation

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Despite the well-established rationale for preventative stress-management interventions,

outcomes have been inconsistent (Richardson and Rothstein, 2008) with much of this

discrepancy attributed to the implementation process (Biron et al., 2012). However, unless

risks to well-being are accurately evaluated, even well-delivered interventions may miss key

issues, risking wasted time and resources. But how do organisations decide which are most

problematic or harmful?

Risk assessment aims to understand and express the level of risk, by taking a systematic,

stepwise approach (Society for Risk Analysis, 2018), and the UK’s Health and Safety

Executive’s (HSE) Management Standards approach provides advice to guide employers

through the stages of this process (https://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/standards/index.htm), from

risk identification (assessing who can be harmed and how) to risk evaluation (the process of

comparing risk analysis results against risk criteria to determine the significance and

acceptability of the risk) (SRA, 2018), followed by the development of action plans and

ongoing review. This paper considers both the assessment and evaluation stages, aiming to

illustrate the extent to which analytic choices may influence the selection of priority

psychosocial risks, based on a widely used psychometric tool, and the role of qualitative data in

supplementing and informing quantitative findings.

International

Journal of

Workplace Health

Management

101

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/1753-8351.htm

Received 13 December 2022

Revised 26 June 2023

10 November 2023

8 November 2024

Accepted 9 December 2024

InternationalJournal of Workplace

HealthManagement

Vol.18 No. 1, 2025

pp.101-117

©Emerald Publishing Limited

e-ISSN:1753-836X

p-ISSN:1753-8351

DOI10.1108/IJWHM-12-2022-0203

Risk assessment and evaluation is a complex process so, to make the identification and

evaluation of potential work-related stress risks more accessible to employers, the HSE

developed the Management Standards Indicator Tool (MSIT) (Cousins et al., 2004).

The MSIT is a freely available 35-item questionnaire aimed at managers and those responsible

for employee wellbeing within organisations (HSE, 2007), providing quantifiable information

about seven key organisational psychosocial stressors: change,control,demands,manager

support,peer support,relationships and roleclarity. These factors were drawn from extensive

reviews of existing psychometric tools (e.g. Cox, 1993;Rick et al., 2001), theoretically

underpinned by Job Demands-Control (JDC; Karasek, 1979) and Job Demands-Control-

Support models (DCS; Johnson and Hall, 1988). These highlight job demands, control, and

support as key psychosocial work features relating to work content, while the MSIT also

incorporates three empirically supported job context factors (Cox et al., 2009); namely, role

clarity, relationships and change.

The MSIT has been well-received for its ease of use and accessibility (e.g. Cox et al., 2009),

with reliability and validity supported across a range of occupations and national contexts

(Brookes et al., 2013;Edwards and Webster, 2012;Toderi et al., 2013;Vaamonde and

Giacobino, 2023); for example, it has been, translated into 18 languages and forms a key

component of the Italian Workers’ Compensation Authority (INAIL) approach (Di Tecco

et al., 2015;Persechino et al., 2013). However, while identifying the prevalence of

psychosocial stressors is necessary, it is not sufficient: risks also need evaluation in order to

prioritise them.

Additionally, the interconnectedness of psychosocial stressors (e.g. Elovainio et al., 2022)

adds to the complexity of interpreting findings: Schaufeli (2017) notes the MSIT and other risk

assessment tools (e.g. Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire III; COPSOQ, Burr et al.,

2019; Nordic Questionnaire for Psychosocial and Social Factors at Work, Lindstr€

omet al.,

2000) measure the extent to which stressors are present, but not the theoretical paths or

interactions by which stressors may affect outcomes. Accordingly, while tools like the MSIT

may effectively identify the frequency of exposure to stressors, it is unclear how to use their

output to prioritise risks and target interventions, presenting a particular challenge for

employers who may not have expertise in this area. Despite the MSIT’s well-validated

psychometric properties, it is less apparent how organisations may use and interpret their data

to make intervention-related decisions. The use of psychometric instruments to assess

psychosocial conditions is well-established, yet research is lacking regarding their utility for

prioritising risks in practice (e.g. Burr et al., 2019;Metzler et al., 2019), including the MSIT

more specifically (e.g. Brookes et al., 2013). Therefore, this paper reports its use in an applied

risk analysis context, comparing priorities highlighted by the MSIT with open-text

qualitative data.

The HSE is explicit in its guidance to employers that the MSIT should form only one

component of a comprehensive stress-risk assessment, and that no questionnaire can cover all

work-related stressors (Cousins et al., 2004), emphasising the importance of integrating data

from a range of sources such as focus groups and employee consultations. Nonetheless,

research suggests employers still place excessive emphasis on the easy-to-administer MSIT

(Gaskell et al., 2007) and are less likely to use more resource-intensive sources (Di Tecco et al.,

2015;Mellor et al., 2011). Indeed, these challenges apply to psychosocial risk evaluation and

stress-management more generally and are not unique to the MSIT (e.g. Jimmieson et al.,

2021;Schuller, 2020). Consequently, if employers are using psychometric tools in this way,

what are the implications for risk assessment outcomes? The quantifiable data these tools

provide, combined with the reassurance for employers that they come from a reputable source,

may give non-experts undue confidence in their output. Therefore, this paper focuses on a

selection of approaches organisations can adopt when gathering and analysing MSIT data, and

the extent to which their analytic choices at that stage could affect conclusions.

The HSE provides a spreadsheet-based analysis tool and the free, base version, of the

spreadsheet presently produces descriptive statistical output, such as mean scores. These have

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