Psychometric properties of the Bergen Work Addiction Scale in a Greek sample of health professionals

Health Psychol Rep. 2022 Oct 24;11(2):156-165. doi: 10.5114/hpr/153494. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

Background: Work addiction it is an emerging topic in organizational research because it has a great impact on human resources, especially in the health sector, and has led to the development of a number of valid assessment tools. Among work addiction scales, the Bergen Work Addiction Scale (BWAS) has good psychometric properties and a small number of items, and comes with a recommended cut-off for categorization of work addiction. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the BWAS in a Greek sample of health professionals (HPs) and to measure their work addiction.

Participants and procedure: A cross sectional study using an online questionnaire related to work addiction was completed by 542 HPs through the official websites of 8 secondary hospitals in Greece.

Results: The level of HPs' work addiction was moderate. The internal structure of the scale was satisfactory (α = .78). All seven items of the BWAS were significant and had standardized values above 0.48. Work addiction was significantly associated with older age and the profession of physician.

Conclusions: Based on the findings of the present study, the Greek BWAS has good psychometric properties, such as good reliability, internal consistency and construct validity and is recommended as a suitable tool to assess work addiction in clinical settings and future research.

Keywords: Bergen Work Addiction Scale; health professionals; validation; work addiction.