P.S. Kidd, T.
Scharf
NIOSH Education and Information Division
Questionnaires
are used frequently in occupational health to assess exposure
risks and compliance with safety measures. Occupational health
researchers use models for the generation of testable hypotheses.
This paper will discuss how qualitative data were used in
model and questionnaire development by illustrating the process
of developing one cluster, -- workload.-- This cluster was
expanded into "workload and other demands" as part of the
Farm Stessor Inventory (FSI). The FSI will be the topic of
another paper presented by C. Heaney and M. Elliott. Workload
was defined as perception, assessment, and judgment regarding
the work environment as part of a farm stress and injury model.
T. Scharf, P. Kidd and M. Veazie will describe the model.
Transcripts
from nine focus group interviews with a total of 90 farmers
and/or spouses of farmers were examined as part of a secondary
analysis of agricultural stressors. Data were coded according
to a keyword dictionary derived as part of the project. Printouts
were generated for each keyword using the FYI 3000 qualitative
data software program. Two researchers independently summarized
- - item clusters -- within each major keyword category. Item
clusters were topics of conversation repeated more than once
across groups. The stories told by the farmers were examined
further to generate contextual framing for the keyword categories.
Then, item clusters were compared to identify areas of redundancy
and were combined for parsimony. The derived clusters were
compared with existing stress questionnaires relevant to farming
to determine if the use of qualitative data provided insights
into farm stressors not apparent in deductively derived questionnaires.
The
mental demands of farm work are not addressed in existing
questionnaires except as time pressures, hazardous working
conditions or climatic conditions. To illustrate, the focus
group participants related time pressures with the stress
of planting and harvesting in the context of an inadequate
labor force. Thus, the derived workload cluster encompasses
labor availability and supervision, task/skill mix, and responsibility
for others. Further, the farmers' perceptions of their work
environment influenced their safety decision making. This
theme served as the basis for the generation of a stress and
injury model.
The
inductive development of a questionnaire and model offers
several advantages: (1) issues of concern to the target audience
are identified and defined using their own jargon, (2) the
content-rich examples provide a context for future item development
and model testing, and (3) additional sources of data are
identified that can be triangulated with questionnaire scores
to enhance validity in construct measurement.
Disclaimer
and Reproduction Information: Information in NASD does not represent
NIOSH policy. Information included in NASD appears by permission
of the author and/or copyright holder. More
NASD Review: 04/2002
This
research abstract was extracted from a portion of the proceedings
of "Agricultural Safety and Health: Detection, Prevention and
Intervention," a conference presented by the Ohio State University
and the Ohio Department of Health, sponsored by the Centers
for Disease Control/National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health.
The
authors above are from: The University of Kentucky, Lexington,
KY; and NIOSH, Cincinnati, OH respectively.
|