Psychometric Properties of the Bern Illegitimate Tasks Scale – Spanish Version

Abstract

In recent years, a new factor for work stress has been studied along with stress as an offense to self-theory. Illegitimate tasks refer to assignments that are unnecessary or are not related to the employee’s role. Because of this, the Bern Illegitimate Tasks Scale was developed, which measures illegitimate tasks in terms of unreasonable tasks and unnecessary tasks. There are no studies in Latin America on illegitimate tasks, so the purpose of this research is to translate and validate the Bern Illegitimate Tasks Scale. The study was performed with a sample of nursing staff from a hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Written informed consent was obtained from each of the participants. The reliability of the questionnaire was evaluated and its structural validity was verified by exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The internal consistency of the whole scale, measured by Cronbach’s alpha, was 0.857. Moreover, the unnecessary and unreasonable subscales measure were 0.846 and 0.841, respectively. The exploratory factor analysis supported a two-factor model that explained 73.96% of the variance. Additionally, the confirmatory factor analysis showed good indexes of fit (GFI = 0.915, CFI = 0.955, TLI = 0.933, SRMR = 0.084, and RMSEA = 0.087). The Spanish version of the Bern Illegitimate Tasks Scale presents good psychometric properties and can be applied to nurses in the Ecuadorian population.

Perceptions and knowledge of telemedicine in Ecuadorian practicing physicians: an instrument adaptation, validation and translation from English to Spanish

“…The eligibility criteria excluded non-Ecuadorian physicians, because the aim was to adapt a questionnaire based on the region. The sample size was determined by multiplying the number of questions (13 items) by 5 (lower limit) and 20 (upper limit), yielding a needed sample size of 65 to 250 doctors, as proposed by Suhr (2005) and other validation studies in an Ecuadorian population [ 16 – 19 ]. The population for this investigation was selected by a nondiscriminative selective snowball sampling method, because of social distancing due to COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Psychometric properties of the Bern illegitimate tasks scale using classical test and item response theories

“…The Bern Illegitimate Tasks Scale (BITS) is the most frequently used instrument to evaluate unnecessary and unreasonable tasks 4 , 13 . To date, nevertheless, few psychometric property studies have been conducted 13 – 15 . The contribution of the current study is its simultaneous application of a classical test theory and an item response theory (IRT) to assess the validity of BITS.…”

“…Significantly, illegitimate tasks have been identified as a severe problem across various workplaces, including the healthcare sector 6 , 15 , 30 , 31 , higher education 32 , IT professionals 33 , teachers 5 , engineers 17 , administrative staff 11 , blue-collar workers 34 , and also Red Cross volunteers 29 .…”

“…The popularity of BITS is underlined by the fact that it has been translated into several languages, including English 11 , Swedish 10 , 41 , Norwegian 39 , Finnish 6 , 27 , Turkish 42 , Indian 43 , Chinese 21 , 35 and Spanish 15 . Existing studies have mostly focused on the scale’s convergent and discriminant validity.…”

“…Existing studies have mostly focused on the scale’s convergent and discriminant validity. Moreover, most studies have shown that BITS has good internal consistency with regard to both subscales (unnecessary and unreasonable tasks) 15 .…”