Objectives: Psychological load, such as workload, not only disrupts work performance but can also directly affect employee safety leadin to accidents. However, despite this issue, not much effort has been made to develop an assessment tool to measure the psychological burden related to the occupational safety and health of employees. Therefore, the present study was designed to validate the psychological burden scale of workers by Kim et al. (2018) from the perspective of occupational health and safety.
Methods: The statistical population of the research consisted of all the workers employed in the Eastern Alborz Company of Shahroud city, and 349 workers participated in the research using a simple random sampling method. In the present study, the mental load scale by Kim et al. (2018), the Copenhagen psychosocial scale (COPSOQ), and the occupational stress scale (HSE) were used. The data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient tests and confirmatory factor analysis using SPSS version 22 statistical software and Lisrel version 8.5.
Results: The results showed that all the components of workers' psychological burden including the overall score and the psychosocial scale and occupational stress scale have a positive and significant relationship. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis also indicated a good fit of the model in determining the factors in the initial form as proposed by Kim et al. (2018). To determine the reliability of the scale, the value of Pearson's correlation coefficient was obtained at 0.82 in the test and retest phases. Additionally, the results of this study showed that 26.1 percent of workers experienced low psychological burden, 49.6 percent experienced moderate psychological burden, and 24.4 percent experienced severe psychological burden.
Conclusion: Based on the results of the current research, the workers' mental burden scale (Kim et al., 2018) is a valid and reliable tool that can be used to evaluate the psychological burden of workers in research and intervention studies.
