Reliability and validity of the French version of the 18-item Karasek Job Content Questionnaire

Previous studies have shown that job strain, a combination of high psycholo gical demands and low decision latitude, may be involved in the development of cardiovascular diseases and other health outcomes. Ln 1985, Karasek rec ommended a standard questionnaire to measure psychological demands (nine it ems) and job decision latitude (nine items). The internal consistency, fact orial validity, discriminant validity, and 1-year stability of the French v ersion of this instrument were evaluated in a population of 8263 white coll ar workers. Participants filled out the questionnaire during working hours in the context of a larger cardiovascular study. A subgroup of the study po pulation completed the questionnaire again 1 year later (n = 953). internal consistency was adequate: .74 for men and .73 for women for psychological demands and .83 for men and .81 for women for decision latitude. The result s of the factor analysis were consistent with the two dimensions expected f rom the theory, although some items had high loading on two factors. Variat ions in the means of psychological demand and decision latitude scores and variations in the prevalence of high job strain by gender, job category, an d age support the discriminant validity. These results were generally compa rable to those observed with the English version. The percentages of worker s remaining, after 1 year, in the same category of psychological demands, d ecision latitude, and job strain were 86.6, 86.1 and 75.2 % respectively. T hese data provide evidence of the reliability and validity of the French ve rsion of these psychological demand and decision latitude scales.