Development and psychometric validation of the healthcare professionals’ psychosocial subjective well-being scale (HP-PSWB)

Healthcare professionals are exposed to substantial psychosocial demands that may affect their well-being, health, and professional functioning. This study developed and provided a preliminary psychometric evaluation of the Healthcare Professionals’ Psychosocial Subjective Well-Being Scale (HP-PSWB). A total of 566 healthcare professionals were randomly divided into exploratory factor analysis (EFA; n = 260) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; n = 306) subsamples. Ordinal EFA using polychoric correlations was applied to identify the factor structure, followed by CFA using the WLSMV estimator. The provisionally retained 35-item model comprised five correlated dimensions: Job Satisfaction and Reward, Work Engagement and Vitality, Occupational Distress and Strain, Organizational Trust and Support, and Autonomy and Work Control. The model demonstrated acceptable fit (CFI = 0.925; TLI = 0.918; RMSEA = 0.071; SRMR = 0.080). Composite reliability ranged from 0.690 to 0.928. The AVE criterion of 0.50 was met only for Job Satisfaction and Reward, indicating that convergent validity for the remaining dimensions should be interpreted cautiously. HTMT values were below 0.85, supporting discriminant validity. The findings provide preliminary evidence supporting the proposed five-factor structure. Further validation in larger and independent healthcare samples is required.