The adaptation of work-family life balance scale into Turkish: a validity and reliability study among healthcare professionals

Purpose- Nowadays, it is seen that work-family life balance has become an important concept to be researched for organisations. In the national literature, it is seen that there is no tool that measures work-family life balance as a concept independent of work-family conflict or work-family enrichment. Work-family life balance is defined as the sustainable fulfilment of the role responsibilities that individuals have agreed with the people within the work and family areas (Grzywacz and Carlson, 2007). The aim of this study is to contribute to the national literature by translating and adapting the work-family life balance scale developed by Carlson, Grzywacz, and Zivnuska (2009), which presents work-family life balance as a concept independent of work-family conflict and work-family enrichment. Methodology- Data was collected by survey method from 429 healthcare professionals working in private hospitals serving in Istanbul. The data obtained was analyzed using SPSS 25.0 programı and LISREL 8.7 analysis programs. Findings- In this study, item consistency, reliability and factor structure of the adapted scale were analysed. The population of the study consists of health personnel working in private hospitals in Istanbul, Turkey. It is among the findings that the participants were mostly female, between the ages of 46-55, married, without children or with 1 child, bachelor's degree, income between 40.001- 50.000, experience of 15 years or more and nurse. As a result of the analysis of the data within the scope of the pilot study, it is seen that the correlation level of the items with each other is between 0.664-0.886 and the Cronbach alpha coefficient revealing the reliability of the scale is 0.899. It was determined that the relationships between the items of the scale and the total score obtained as a result of the Pearson correlation test, which revealed the total correlation value, ranged between 0.766-0.929 and the relationships were statistically significant. In order to decide on the adequacy of the participants for factor analysis, KMO and Barlett Sphericity tests were performed to check the suitability of the structure of the data. It was concluded that the number of participants in the pilot study was suitable for factor analysis (KMO: 0,893; Bartlett's Test of Sphericity = X2(15)=690,665). The Cronbach alpha value of the adapted scale in the main study was found to be 0.894, and its validity, reliability and factor structure were revealed by the pilot study. According to the CFA findings, it was determined that the standardised factor loadings of the items were between 0.71-0.93 and the correlations between the items and latent variables were significant (t>1.96). It was concluded that the effects of the factor loadings of all items on the scale dimensions were significant at 95% confidence level. It was determined that there was a highly significant relationship between the scale adapted within the scope of the research and the test-retest (r: 0.949; p<0.05). Since these correlation levels were at a high level, it was determined that the scale did not change over time. Conclusion- It seems that the findings of the research support that the work-family life balance scale is a valid and reliable measurement tool in the national literature. Keywords: Scale adaptation, work-family life balance, work-family life balance scale, validity, reliability JEL Codes: M10, M19,L20