Adaptation and Validation of a French-Language Measurement Scale for Workplace Harassment (HMT)
- 1 Maître de Conférences, Université de Tours, Tours, France*
Abstract
Harassment at work, and more broadly the mental health of employees, is a major concern today. Indeed, labor law provides for an obligation for employers to take care of the physical and mental health of their employees. Currently, the field of French occupational psychology has few tools related to workplace harassment. This article presents the results of two studies establishing the psychometric properties of a French translation of the “Work Harassment Scale” (WHS) developed by Bj ? rkqvist, Osterman & Hjelt-B ? ck (Bj ? rkqvist et al., 1992, 199 4 ) . Study 1 describes the steps involved in translating the questionnaire and verifies factor structure, internal consistency, and item quality among nonclinical participants. Study 2 aims to evaluate the factor structure of the scale through confirmatory factor analysis and to evaluate the temporal stability of the scale. Overall results indicate that the HMT scale exhibits good psychometric properties among a non-clinical adult population. Participant recruitment was carried out via a completely anonymous online questionnaire. In total, 631 people voluntarily participated in our study. The results of our study revealed a 13-item harassment scale. This tool proves to be an excellent instrument for clinicians, psychologists and researchers s eeking to quickly and effectively identify the risks of harassment at work.
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