Evaluating the usability of two salutogenic instruments on health and work experience, using cognitive interviewing

Workplace surveys are used in workplace health promotion as a basis for improvements at the workplace. But there is lack of psychometrically and qualitatively validated work-health related instruments with a salutogenic approach. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to evaluate the two instruments, the Salutogenic Health Indicator Scale and the Work Experience Measurement Scale, among staff of different professions in a healthcare setting. These instruments were evaluated with cognitive interviews conducted at a hospital in Sweden. The respondents were purposefully selected from various criteria such as profession, age, and sex (N = 14). The respondents read the items aloud and then spoke about how they experienced the items. A deductive (partly inductive) content analysis was done from Tourangeau's four concepts of respondent actions: comprehension, retrieval, judgment, and response. Two main categories emerged: (1) interpreting and (2) responding, and an additional six subcategories: difficulty, essence, direction, keywords, strategy, and alternatives. The results showed strengths and weaknesses of the instruments. The results were discussed from various validity aspects: face validity, content validity, and user validity. The validity aspects were connected to concepts of respondent actions as well as to questionnaire and respondent factors for motivation.