The subscales were job demands (four items), social support from supervisor (three items), social support from colleagues (three items), and control (four items) having Cronbach's alphas of.80,.90 ,.80 and.81, respectively.
Psychosocial work factors were measured by the Dutch version of the Job Content Questionnaire [ 24], which measures work pressure (4 items), decision latitude (4 items), social support from co-workers and social support from supervisor (4 items each), Cronbach's alpha = 0.80, 0.84, 0.81 and 0.88).
The wording of the MSPSS items concerning support from a "significant other" (items 1, 2, 5 & 10 in Table 1) emphasize the close confiding nature of this relationship and is consistent with the notion that being able to confide in another is key in protecting against depression [ 51].
The domains of support to be rated by the patient are: perceived available support (8 items), need for support (4 items), support seeking (5 items) and support actually received from the person closest to the patient (15 items).
Among the subordinate items, 'systemic support from the hospital' refers to personnel support such as research nurses, supporting entities and the general support environment provided to doctors not only for clinical trials but also for day-to-day clinical practice.
During the development of the job satisfaction instrument used in this study [ 13] one of the items, emotional support from immediate line-manager, would sometimes (child and mental health branches) load on the development factor rather than the relationships factor.
The reason for this is simple––the heavier items receive support from your back rather than causing you to sway if they sit away from your back up top.
The JCQ (12) was used to assess 5 dimensions of work stress: decision latitude (3 items), skill discretion (6 items), psychological demand (5 items), job security (3 items), and social support from supervisors and coworkers (8 items).
For example, HNC patients reported that Item 17 (IRT17) "support from God" was difficult to understand.
The JCQ consists of five subscales: job demands (5 items, range 12 48), decision authority (3 items, range 12 48), skill discretion (6 items, range 12 48), social support from supervisors (4 items, range 4 16) and coworker support (4 items, range 4 16).
Eight items concerning social support from coworkers and supervisors and one item concerning conflicts with the supervisor will be used.
