Psychometric Assessment of the Physicians' Job Demands and Resources Scale.

Abstract

Job demands and resources have been consistently associated with the burnout syndrome in physicians, however the literature points to a lack of robust measures to assess these job characteristics across various medical specialties. This study aimed to develop a theoretically and empirically grounded physician-specific job demands and resources self-report measure - the Physicians' Job Demands and Resources Scale. Relevant dimensions of physicians' job demands and resources were identified, corresponding measurement items were generated and pre-tested, and the factor structure of the resulting 44 items was tested with a sample of 9,176 Portuguese physicians. The results of EFAs and CFAs with two random split samples provided consistent evidence of a nine-factor structure with 38 of the 44 items. Importantly, the nine-factor structure is consistent with the dimensions identified in the literature. The paper discusses the theoretical and practical impacts of the scale.