Psychometric properties of the Bergen Work Addiction Scale in a Greek sample of health professionals

Abstract

BackgroundWork addiction it is an emerging topic in organizational research because it has a great impact on human resources, especial-ly in the health sector, and has led to the development of a number of valid assessment tools. Among work addiction scales, the Bergen Work Addiction Scale (BWAS) has good psychometric properties and a small number of items, and comes with a recommended cut-off for categorization of work addiction. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the BWAS in a Greek sample of health professionals (HPs) and to measure their work addiction.Participants and procedureA cross sectional study using an online questionnaire related to work addiction was completed by 542 HPs through the offi-cial websites of 8 secondary hospitals in Greece.ResultsThe level of HPs’ work addiction was moderate. The internal structure of the scale was satisfactory (α = .78). All seven items of the BWAS were significant and had standardized values above 0.48. Work addiction was significantly associated with older age and the profession of physician.ConclusionsBased on the findings of the present study, the Greek BWAS has good psychometric properties, such as good reliability, internal consistency and construct validity and is recommended as a suitable tool to assess work addiction in clinical settings and future research.

Network Approach to Work Addiction: A Cross-Cultural Study

“…Taking into account feedback loops, it can be expected that increasing problems may increase mood modification needs and aggravate tolerance, withdrawal, and relapse symptoms. These assumptions seem to find support in previous research (Atroszko et al, 2017;Bellali et al, 2023;Denizci Nazlıg€ ul et al, 2022;Falco et al, 2022;Fekih-Romdhane et al, 2022;Molino et al, 2022;Sun et al, 2023). Therefore, we argue that work addiction could be conceptualized as a network of direct relationships between its symptoms.…”

“…However, the network approach’s impact on work addiction research should not be overestimated. The network framework allows to investigate direct relationships between symptoms of work addiction easily, but a careful examination of previous research grounded in the latent variable framework may lead to somewhat similar observations (Atroszko et al, 2017; Bellali et al, 2023; Denizci Nazlıgül et al, 2022; Falco et al, 2022; Fekih-Romdhane et al, 2022; Molino et al, 2022). Additionally, the moderate level of symptom predictability indicates that a substantial portion of work addiction symptoms’ variability cannot be predicted based on states of other symptoms.…”

“…While a few authors reported that they obtained RMSEAs above the acceptable threshold and stopped there (Bereznowski & Konarski, 2020; Lichtenstein et al, 2019; Orosz et al, 2016), others investigated which residual correlations between symptoms were needed to be allowed to obtain acceptable fit (see Table 1). The correlation between salience (1) and tolerance (2) was required in Poland (Atroszko et al, 2017), Greece (Bellali et al, 2023), and Italy (Falco et al, 2022). The correlation between salience (1) and mood modification (3) was required in Poland (Atroszko et al, 2017) and Greece (Bellali et al, 2023).…”

Assessing losses and gains with ageing: the psychometric properties of the Polish version of the Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire

“…Moreover, various indices were used to make conclusions regarding adequacy of fit to the data (Kline, 2015). Several limitations and inconsistencies in interpretation of particular indicators may exist (e.g., RMSEA and CFI), which does not preclude adequate model fit, especially considering the theoretical background in test validation studies (e.g., Bellali et al, 2023;Chachamovich et al, 2008;Kline, 2015;Lai & Green, 2016).…”

The prevalence of workaholism: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Individuals who respond "often" or always" on 4 out of 7 items are considered to be work addicts. BWAS has been found to have good psychometric properties (Andreassen et al, 2012;Bellali et al, 2022).…”