Measuring eudemonic well-being at work: a validation study for the 24-itemthe University of Tokyo Occupational Mental Health (TOMH) well-being scale among Japaneseworkers

摘要

Although the eudemonic perspective seems to be a promising in considering vocationalidentity among working population, well-being at work has been discussed primarily interms of subjective/hedonic well-being. This study aimed to develop a new tool to measureeudemonic well-being at work (The University of Tokyo Occupational Mental Health [TOMH]well-being 24 scale)and investigate its validity in a collectivist culture. Two onlinesurveys were conducted with a total of 1,760 workers in Japan. We created 89 potentialitems from existing scales. An exploratory factor analysis indicated eight factors for thedimensions of measurement. After item selection based on item response theory, the factorstructure with three items from each of the eight dimensions indicated an excellent fitfor another sample. Cronbach’s α and intra-class coefficients ranged from 0.671 to 0.845.The scores of the tool were more strongly associated with subjective well-being in thework context rather than well-being in general. In addition, the participants in the groupdemonstrating a higher risk for mental illness and a more stressful work environmentindicated significantly lower scores, even after adjusting for general eudemonicwell-being. The new measurement may be useful both for academic and practical applicationsfor measuring eudemonic well-being at work, independent from general eudemonicwell-being.