Throughout this lecture, the terms “StressPro” and, by extension (see page 3), “VitalityPro” refer to these two profiles’ in their April, 2012 form. The reader should remain aware that both instruments have been developed and psychometrically refined through a 35-year process of applied research undertaken by the Canadian Institute of Stress both in its Toronto clinic and in more than 80 Canadian workplaces, representing in excess of 188,000 employees.

 

Described in necessarily greater detail later, the key milestones in this R & D process may be summarized as follows:

 

• 1979-80: The Institute’s 256-item Stress Inventory System (SIS) questionnaire is developed as a paper-and-pencil profile based in then existing well validated psychometric inventories. In summary, the SIS measured, much like StressMap, (a) workplace and personal stressors; (b) mindsets; (3) coping resources; and (4) biopsychosocial outcomes.  The SIS was originally developed to support / focus the Institute’s workplace programming and clinic services. It was also extensively applied both in the Institute’s Body Age research program, and in applied research projects conducted for specific workplace clients.

 

• 1980-88: Data collected in these three types of applications (N = 24,210 client subjects) supported data analyses enabling the Institute to progressively reduce the SIS’ number of questionnaire items to those 76 items which most strongly predict collateral indicators of health, work performance and satisfaction. In 1988, with publication of Dr. Earle’s “Your Vitality Quotient”, these items became known as the Vitality Quotient (VQ) profile in paper-and-pencil format.

 

• 1988-02: Continuing reliability and validation studies of the VQ profile in workplaces, various clinics internationally and in several multi-year Institute research programs (in collaboration with workplaces and government agencies, including Ontario’s Ministry of Labour and Canada’s federal Office of the Auditor General).

 

• 2002-04: VQ upgraded to online availability. Psychometric robustness evaluated and stabilized for online applications.

 

• 2004-05: The online VitalityPro is created by augmenting the VQ with the addition of two other well established Institute workforce profiles, namely (a) the 36-item Stress, Satisfaction & Engagement (SSE) profile, and (b) the 24-item Lifestyle Balance profile.

 

• 2004-05: The VitalityPro is extended by inclusion and validation of items defining nine Workplace / Culture Environment Factors known to critically impact employees’ levels of stress, satisfaction and engagement in their work. This “extended” profile is the VitalityPro presently used

 

 

Summary Of Psychometric Properties of the VitalityPro

Engagement Index  (and of its 3 sub-scales)

 

 

Validity of the Engagement Index

 

Table 1 summarizes the predictive validity of the StressPro / VitalityPro Engagement Index and of the three sub-scales comprising the index, expressed in terms of the level of statistical significance achieved by the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient summarizing Index and sub-scales’ strength of association with each of 11 criterion measures as observed in the workforces of three companies. (N = 1702).