Background: In literature, there are many instruments for evaluating workaholism; however, they do not have convergent validity, because of the lack of a shared definition of workaholism.
Objective: We propose a new instrument for evaluating workaholism and work engagement, namely the Work-related Inventory (WI-10), which is based on Loscalzo and Giannini's (2017) comprehensive definition of workaholism.
Methods: We developed a pool of 36 items, covering: 1) addiction symptoms; 2) obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and 3) work engagement. Then, we conducted Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor analyses on a sample of 503 Italian workers (165 males, 337 females, one missing; Mean age = 38.26±10.84) aiming to reduce the number of items.
Results: The results showed a 10-items (2 filler) and 2-factor solution: 1) Workaholism and 2) Work Engagement; moreover, the WI-10 has good internal reliability, convergent and divergent validity.
Conclusions: We found good psychometric properties for the WI-10. We also proposed the cut-off scores for the screening of the four kinds of workers proposed by Loscalzo and Giannini (2017): disengaged workaholics, engaged workaholics, engaged workers, and detached workers. The WI-10 will be useful for both research and preventive and clinical purposes.
Keywords: Heavy work investment; organizations; screening; well-being; work addiction; work engagement.