TITLE:
Adaptation and Validation of a French-Language Measurement Scale for Workplace Harassment (HMT)
AUTHORS:
Catherine Hervé
KEYWORDS:
Workplace Harassment, Adults, Professional Life, Psychometric Properties, Validation
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.14 No.11,
November
23,
2023
ABSTRACT: Harassment at work, and more broadly the mental health of employees, is a
major concern today. Indeed, labor law provides for an obligation for employers
to take care of the physical and mental health of their employees. Currently,
the field of French occupational psychology has few tools related to workplace
harassment. This article presents the results of two studies establishing the
psychometric properties of a French translation of the “Work Harassment Scale”
(WHS) developed by Bj?rkqvist, Osterman & Hjelt-B?ck (Bj?rkqvist et al., 1992, 1994). Study 1 describes the steps involved in translating the questionnaire
and verifies factor structure, internal consistency, and item quality among
nonclinical participants. Study 2 aims to evaluate the factor structure of the
scale through confirmatory factor analysis and to evaluate the temporal
stability of the scale. Overall results indicate that the HMT scale exhibits
good psychometric properties among a non-clinical adult population. Participant
recruitment was carried out via a completely anonymous online questionnaire. In
total, 631 people voluntarily participated in our study. The results of our
study revealed a 13-item harassment scale. This tool proves to be an excellent instrument for clinicians, psychologists and
researchers seeking to quickly and effectively identify the risks of
harassment at work.