Question

Measures of Adult Work Disability
The Work Limitations Questionnaire (WLQ) and the Rheumatoid Arthritis Work Instability Scale (RA-WIS)

Purpose. To measure on-the-job impact of chronic health problems and/or treatment and health-related productivity loss.

Content. Items address limitations in performing 4 dimensions of job demands (see subscales). Items are common attributes of job roles, are sensitive to the effects of physical and/or mental health problems, and relevant to productivity.

Developer/contact information.Debra Lerner, PhD, The Health Institute, Tufts-New-England Medical Center, Division of Clinical Research, Box 345, 750 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111. E-mail: [email protected]. Items may be seen in the Lerner et al publication.

Number of items in scale. There are 25 items.

Subscales. The WLQ contains 4 different scales, physical demands, time demands, mental- interpersonal demands, and output demands. Physical Demands: 6 items that cover ability to perform job tasks involving bodily strength, movement, endurance, coordination, and flexibility; examples are “walk or move around different

work locations (for example, go to meetings)” and “use hand-held tools or equipment (for example, phone, pen, keyboard, computer mouse, drill, hairdryer, or sander).” Time Demands: 5 items that address handling a job’s time and scheduling demands; examples are “work the required number of hours” and “stick to a routine or schedule.” Mental-Interpersonal Demands: 9 items that address cognitively-demanding tasks (2) like “keep your mind on your work” and on-the-job social interactions like “control your temper around people when working.” Output Demands: 5 items that concern reduced productivity (2), such as “handle the workload” and “do your work without making mistakes.”

Populations. Developmental/target. Employed persons with chronic health conditions. Individuals with asthma, Crohn’s disease, liver disease, depression/anxiety or epilepsy generated items for the instrument; validity testing was conducted in multiple patient groups (e.g., persons diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, chronic daily headaches, epilepsy, osteoarthritis, or depression) and in employee populations within large firms.

Other uses. Since development, the instrument has been used in samples of people with rheumatoid arthritis , fibromyalgia, depression, low back pain , chronic pain, head trauma, and other conditions. It is being used in academic and industry-sponsored clinical trials , and some employers are using it to assess employee populations.

Time to administer/complete. 10 minutes.

Scoring

Responses. Scale. Each item has a 5-point ordinal response scale; there is an additional category of response (the sixth point) for “does not apply to my job.”

Score range. Range is 0–100%; 0% health makes the job demand difficult none of the time and 100% health makes the job demand difficult all of the time.

Interpretation of scores. Cut points have not been established; however, a nationally representative household survey will be conducted in 2002 by the National Opinion Research Center, which will generate normative WLQ data for various condition groups, including persons with musculoskeletal symptoms.

Method of scoring. The instrument can be scored by hand.

The WLQ generates 4 scales. All items are scored as follows: 0 0% (none of the time); 1 25%; 2 50%; 3 75%; and 4 100% (all of the time); “does not apply” responses are set to missing. The individual level scale score is a mean of the responses for items within the scale. The mean is used instead of a summed scale to take into account the valid option of “does not apply.” If half or more of the responses within a scale are missing, the case is to be deleted. The mean of the items is multiplied by 25 to put it on a scale of 0– 100%.

Validity. Content. Three pilot studies were conducted to generate items, dimensions, and response scales (1). The first study was focus groups held with patients with chronic health conditions. In the second study, patients were interviewed to determine how a sample of respondents interpreted and answered the items generated in the focus groups. A third sample was then used to test alternate question formats of potential items.

Construct. The responses of specialty clinic patients were compared with those of their co- workers (1). In each scale, scores of the patients were higher (worse) than those of co-workers: Physical Demands, P 0.03; Time Demands, P 0.01; Mental-Interpersonal Demands, P 0.04; Output Demands, P 0.03.

The WLQ scores of patients with three health conditions (rheumatoid arthritis, chronic daily headaches, or epilepsy) were compared (adjusted for age and sex) and found to be significantly different: Physical Demands, P 0.001; Time Demands, P 0.007; Mental-Interpersonal Demands, P 0.001; Output Demands, P 0.02 (1). Persons with rheumatoid arthritis were more limited than persons with headaches in physical dmands and less limited than persons with headaches on mental-interpersonal demands.

Questions

1 Is this questionnaire disease specific or general?

2) could the patients students, homemakers and retirees.  answer the questionnaire

3) were the outcomes this questionnaire captures relevant to Rheumatoid Arthritis ?

300 words each question no plagiarism please no bullet points

Answer 1

1 Is this questionnaire disease specific or general?

This questionnaire is general one not focusing on a specific diseases condition, The questionnaire listed brings the outcomes of how a job has a impact on person health condition and leads to chronic diseases. The questionnaires covers four areas to assess physical and mental condition of a person at work. In general to know what are the possible diseases caused due to a job and how its affects individual mentally, what are all the changes and challenges that a person faces in every day work zone and the coping mechanism to adopt changes and the health issue faced by working people.  

2) could the patients students, homemakers and retirees.  answer the questionnaire

Yes, the questionnaire are prepared effortless way to answer and understand, to bring out the physical demands, time demands, mental- interpersonal demands, and output demands. Physical Demands helps to know the persons ability and strength in work setting ,Time Demands to know the time handling and Mental-Interpersonal Demands to assess the interpersonal skill of a person finally Output Demands to know whether is productive or not.

3) were the outcomes this questionnaire captures relevant to Rheumatoid Arthritis ?

No, the result is not the expected outcomes of rheumatoid arthritis because the number of patient with rheumatoid arthritis are less in number when comparing to others.