German-speaking regions get first tool to measure work-life satisfaction
Researchers have created and validated the first German-language questionnaire to measure how satisfied people are with the balance and variety of their daily activities—beyond just work versus personal time. The tool could help occupational therapists, employers, and healthcare systems better assess and improve employee wellbeing across Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.
Originaltitel: Translation, cultural adaption and content validity evaluation of the Occupational Balance Questionnaire into German—a cross-sectional study in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland
Background Extending the concept of work-life balance and recognising that many people’s lives cannot easily be divided into work and non-work life, Occupational Balance enables the exploration of a person’s satisfaction with the balance and variance of occupations in daily life at most contemporary levels. Objective To effectively measure Occupational Balance in the German-speaking population, this study developed a German version of the Occupational Balance Questionnaire (OBQ11-G) by conducting a cross-sectional study involving translation, cultural adaptation and content validity evaluation. Methods A preliminary German version of the OBQ11 was developed based on Beaton’s guideline and then finalised after an online focus group ( n = 7 occupational therapists; 5 women [71%]) to reach consensus on the relevance, comprehensibility and overall comprehensiveness of the items. We applied the framework method to analyse the focus group’s qualitative data and descriptive statistics to report the quantitative data. Results Overall, the experts rated all questionnaire items as “relevant” to “very relevant”, but eight of the eleven items were slightly adapted to improve comprehensibility, due to inconsistencies in terminology. Experts did not agree on whether the questionnaire fully covered the concept of Occupational Balance, with 57% of respondents agreeing and 43% disagreeing, suggesting that additional assessments should be applied when measuring Occupational Balance. Conclusion The German version of the OBQ11 has now been thoroughly translated, and further studies on its psychometric properties are needed to enhance its validity.