Measuring individual and work-related correlates of employees' well-being with a short form of the psychological general well-being index: A pilot validation study in Slovenia

BACKGROUND: The improvement of psychic well-being and mental health prevention in the workplace are high on the European agenda. OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to perform a construct validation of the previously developed short forms of the Psychological General Well-Being Index (PGWBI) on the working population and to identify the possible individual and work-related characteristics that co-shape individual perceptions of well-being. METHODS: A cross-sectional, quantitative study design was utilized. A standardized instrument and its four short forms developed in previous studies were used. The sample included 376 employees from larger companies of one Slovenian region. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and multiple linear regression were performed. RESULTS: The short form that shows the best fit in this study sample is the PGWBI-B with RMSEA = 0.063; CFI = 0.986; SRMR= 0.026; NNFI = 0.977 and CI = 0.982. The significant independent variables were educational level (p < 0.001) and the average number of working hours per week (p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The study proved that working conditions are correlated with employees' well-being. Further validation of the PGWBI short forms should be performed with parallel and work context-specific measures of well-being to assess their concurrent validity. The monitoring of general employee well-being should become a regular practice in work organisations.