Development and validation of the Quality of Work Life Scale for elderly workers

BACKGROUND: With the rapid rise in the elderly population and their labour force participation, quality of work life (QoWL) of elderly workers becomes an important concept. A valid instrument to measure elderly workers QoWL is a prerequisite to further in this direction. OBJECTIVE: To develop and validate the Quality of Work Life Scale-Elderly (QoWLS-E) for elderly workers 60 years and above in Sri Lanka. METHODS: The development and validation of 35 items in QoWLS-E was carried out in two stages. Using a literature search and expert opinion, the items were developed in English language and later translated to Sinhala language. The initial scale consisted of 38 items and a principle component analysis (PCA) was conducted among 275 elderly workers in selected administrative divisions of Colombo district. Then a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted among a separate group of 250 elderly workers to confirm the factor structure of the developed scale. RESULTS: PCA identified 9 principle components accounting for a variance of 71%, which was later confirmed in the CFA (RMSEA-0.07, SRMR-1.0, NNFI-0.87, GFI-0.82, CFI-0.96). The final QoWLS-E with a structure of 9 domains namely; physical health, psychological, welfare facility, safety, job content, co-worker, supervisor, flexibility and autonomy having 35 items correlated satisfactorily with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.77 and test – retest reliability of 0.82. CONCLUSION: QoWLS-E is conceptually and culturally appropriate to assess Quality of Work Life Scale in elderly. It could be a useful tool to describe and monitor improvement of QOWL in elderly.