Does an entrepreneur run the risk of developing stress due to unsuitability as an entrepreneur? Validation of an entrepreneurship scale

BACKGROUND: Self-employed workers have largely been missing from research in work and occupational health. There are hardly any questionnaires that measure the specific problems and stressors of the self-employed. Recently the Work and Well-Being Inventory (WBI) (in Dutch: VAR-2) was normal and validated for the self-employed. However, a scale that measures the suitability as an entrepreneur was still lacking. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of a new developed WBI-scale for self-employed workers (entrepreneurs) to assess the suitability as an entrepreneur. METHODS: The new developed entrepreneurship scale consisted of 15 items divided among 4 subscales: entrepreneurial attitude (4 items), management skills (3 items), entrepreneurial resilience (5 items), and financial health (3 items). We conducted a cross-sectional study, including 676 self-employed workers (business owners, liberal professions, and medical practitioners). Data was used to calculate the test-retest reliability, construct validity, concurrent validity, and incremental validity. Concurrent validity was calculated against external measures of stress and job demands. RESULTS: Business owners obtained the highest mean score on the entrepreneurship scale, followed by liberal professions and medical practitioners. Cronbach's alpha was good for the full scale and sufficient for two subscales. Confirmatory factor analyses showed an excellent fit of the bi-factor model. We found a negative correlation between the entrepreneurship scale and the external measures of stress and job demands. CONCLUSIONS: The new developed entrepreneurship scale provides a good reliable and valid instrument to assess psychosocial risks factors in self-employed workers. The scale can help medical advisors to assess psychosocial risk factors that make self-employed workers at risk of work disability or sickness absence. More research is needed to investigate the predictive validity of the scale

Indications of a Scarring Effect of Sickness Absence Periods in a Cohort of Higher Educated Self-Employed

OBJECTIVES:Little is known regarding incidence and recurrence of sickness absence in self-employed. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of the number of prior episodes of sickness absence on the risk of subsequent periods of sickness absence in higher educated self-employed. METHODS:In a historic register study based on the files of a Dutch private disability insurance company all sickness absence periods of 30 days or more were analysed. RESULTS:A total of 15,868 insured persons contributed 141,188 person years to the study. In total, 5608 periods of sickness absence occurred during follow-up. The hazard of experiencing a new period of sickness absence increased with every previous period, ranging from a hazard ratio of 2.83 in case of one previous period of sickness absence to a hazard ratio of 6.72 in case of four previous periods. This effect was found for both men and women and for all diagnostic categories of the first period of sickness absence. CONCLUSIONS:Our study shows that for all diagnostic categories the hazard of experiencing a recurrence of sickness absence is appreciably higher than for experiencing a first episode. This suggests that this increased hazard may be related to the occurrence of sickness absence itself rather than related to characteristics of the insured person or of the medical condition. These findings could indicate that sickness absence periods may have a scarring effect on the self-employed person experiencing the sickness absence

Hazard ratios stratified for diagnostic categories of first episodes of sickness absence related to hazard ratio for experiencing a recurrent episode of sickness absence.

<p>Hazard ratios stratified for diagnostic categories of first episodes of sickness absence related to hazard ratio for experiencing a recurrent episode of sickness absence.</p

Incidence density of sickness absence according to major diagnostic categories of the first episode.

<p>Incidence density of sickness absence according to major diagnostic categories of the first episode.</p

Hazard ratio according to number of previous periods of sickness absence regardless of cause for the total sample and stratified for gender.

<p>Hazard ratio according to number of previous periods of sickness absence regardless of cause for the total sample and stratified for gender.</p