Inter-method agreement between O*NET and survey measures of psychosocial exposure among healthcare industry employees

BACKGROUND: Imputed job characteristics had been used as proxy of exposure to working conditions. O*NET database provides job information that could be useful to evaluate psychosocial working conditions. METHODS: Consistency and total agreement between O*NET and self-reported psychosocial exposure (demand/control (DC), effort/reward (ER) proxy models, and emotional labor scale) were compared between healthcare specific (12 occupations, 215 workers) and other jobs (12 occupations, 146 workers). RESULTS: For dimensions of the DC and ER models, Spearman correlation and ICC coefficients were, in general, consistently high (ICC = 0.61 for decision latitude, 0.41 for rewards, 0.53 for ER ratio, and lower for others), particularly in the healthcare specific jobs. CONCLUSION: O*NET and questionnaire based psychosocial indicators showed a good job level agreement particularly on healthcare specific jobs. O*NET may be a useful source of job level psychosocial exposure, especially for the DC and ER models, for healthcare occupations within these types of facilities.