Psychometric properties of unemployment syndrome scale and relevance to clinical practice

Abstract

This study was designed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the newly completed unemployment syndrome scale (USS).Method: Using a cross-sectional descriptive design, 319 long-term unemployed people completed a questionnaire.Findings: Internal consistency reliability was supported by Cronbach's α value of .912 for the total scale. To assess the construct validity of the USS, we examined convergent validity, known-groups validity, and exploratory factor analysis. We also assessed convergent validity by examining the relationship between the USS and five other related and known concepts. The Exploratory Factor Analysis performed on the USS extracted three factors with Eigen values >1 (Kaiser's Criterion), which explained the variability of 55.16%.As hypothesized, all correlations were moderate. On the other hand, regarding knowngroups validity, the hypotheses were validated.Conclusions: This evidence of the reliability and validity of USS supports its use in research and clinical practice to evaluate the impact of long-term unemployment and its treatment. Relevance to clinical practice:The USS is a Spanish clinical tool for the assessment of patients with unemployment syndrome symptoms and integral needs care by nursing professionals.

Unemployment Syndrome during COVID-19: A Comparison of Three Population Groups

“…We also advocate the use of the USS scale in other populations or contexts to assess symptoms of unemployment and to develop a new understanding of the nature of unemployment in order to develop and evaluate specific, individualised interventions. From a clinical point of view, there is a need for a self-administered measure that reflects the current definition of unemployment syndromes and also meets some criteria such as patient acceptability, simplicity, low cost, and psychometric validity [ 16 ]. Moreover, the USS is a measure that allows for the quantification of the symptoms of the main indicators of a syndrome in a short period time and can be of great use for both researchers and clinicians working in the healthcare field (e.g., as an aid for screening and clinical diagnosis, to quantify the level of disorder, or to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment).…”

“…The version of the USS measure tested by Bocchino, Lepiani Diaz, Gilart Cantizano, Medialdea and Dueñas Rodríguez [ 16 ] is comprised of 20 items related to symptoms caused by unemployment conditions.…”

“…Even though anger, depression, aggressiveness, anxiety, frustration, etc. are among the most evident symptoms, which by themselves represent an alarming concern, as recent research has been able to show [ 16 ] and which also provide several reasons to make long-term unemployment a plausible topic worthy of attention, the current crisis has made us wonder why conceptual, empirical, and clinical knowledge on this topic is currently very limited. Assessing the negative impacts of unemployment is fraught with challenges.…”

“…Assessing the negative impacts of unemployment is fraught with challenges. First, to date, there is only one recently validated diagnostic instrument [ 16 ], and its usefulness in clinical practice is still partly unknown. Secondly, health professionals are neither prepared nor trained to care for this type of population since they are unaware of the possible symptoms related to the unemployment syndrome.…”