Volume 7, Article 2
The Life Tasks Test: Psychometric evaluation in clinical samples of office workers and rescue workers
A. H. M. Bakker, M. J. P. M. van Veldhoven, V. A. J. Palte, B. H. Gänzler and R. Mangroelal
Citation: Bakker, H. M. B., van Veldhoven, M. J. P. M., Palte, V. A. J., Gänzler, B. H., & Mangroelal, R. (2023). The Life Tasks Test: Psychometric evaluation in clinical samples of office workers and rescue workers. International Journal of Stress Prevention and Wellbeing, 7, 2, 1-16. https://www.stressprevention.net/volume/volume-7-2023/volume-7-article-2/
Processing dates: Submitted: 1st October 2021; Re-submitted 27th August 2022; Accepted: 15th September 2022; Published: 16th March 2023
Abstract
Background: Life tasks are the pillars of daily private life that underlie personal well-being and health. Bakker et al. (2019) developed the Life Tasks Test (LTT) to assess the perceived effectiveness in life task functioning and found evidence for its psychometric properties (e.g., factorial structure and criterion validity) in a rescue worker sample.
Aims: This paper aims (1) to verify Bakker et al.’s (2019) findings by replicating the study design and (2) assessing the generalisability to an office worker sample.
Method: Cross-sectional data on rescue workers (n = 412) and office workers (n = 726) were used to confirm reliability, convergent validity, factorial structure, and criterion validity of the LTT.
Results: The reliability estimates are shown to be acceptable in both samples. The hypothesised factor structure is shown to have adequate fit on the data, after adjustment of the initial 20-item model. Perceived life tasks functioning accounted for substantial variance (r = ~.30) in negative affect. In rescue workers significant differences in life tasks scores were found for gender- and age-based subgroups. In office workers, significant differences were substantiated according to occupation.
Limitations: The sample of rescue workers wholly consists of police officers and, therefore, represents only part of the rescue worker population. Furthermore, it is yet to be shown if the results are replicable for healthy populations.
Conclusions: The present findings confirm that most of Bakker et al.’s (2019) original findings are replicable in a new clinical sample of rescue workers and generalisable to a clinical sample of office workers. This study contributes to the growing body of research on positive health self-management and its measurement.
Keywords: life tasks, rescue workers, office workers, test, validity
Biographies
Alice Heilwine Marieke Bakker is an international healthcare psychologist, with Balans & Impuls, The Netherlands. She started her own agency ‘’Balans & Impuls’’ in February 1997, aimed at strengthening employees and employers to perform psychologically effective and healthy in demanding work. She works at a psychologist at Balans & Impuls she gives support to rescue workers for several years. She received a PhD from Tilburg University, the Netherlands in 2020. Her promotion research focused on resilience of rescue workers and private life tasks.
E-mail: hbakker@balans-en-impuls.nl
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3984-510X
Marc J. P. M. van Veldhoven is a full professor in the department of Human Resource Studies at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. His chair is focused on the topic of “Work, Health & Well-being”. Previous experience related to the current paper refers to his role as promotor of H. Bakker: “The impact of rescue work on mental health and private life tasks: how to protect health and effectiveness in a high-risk job (2020)”. Moreover, he contributed to the first study of Bakker et al. (2019) which examined the functioning of rescue
workers in life tasks by developing a life task test.
E-mail: M.J.P.M.vanVeldhoven@tilburguniversity.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5762-7945
Vincent Arga Johannes Palte, MSc Psychology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He is currently working as a mental health practitioner in Delft. As a research intern at Balans & Impuls The Hague, his contributions to the current paper consisted of the literature review, data analysis, and writing the main body of text.
E-mail: v.palte@gmail.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6081-6154
Beatrice Helena Gänzler, BSc Psychology, is currently pursuing a Master in Applied Social Psychology at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands.
E-mail: beatrice.gaenzler@gmail.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0936-8173
Ratna Mangroelal, MSc Psychology, is non-affiliated. She is working as health psychologist in the field of prevention and treatment of job related mental health problems.
E-mail: Rmangroelal@balans-en-impuls.nl
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8673-8625