This study aimed to validate the Malay Version of Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire for Malaysian use and application for assessing psychosocial work environment factors. Validity and Reliability were studied in 50 staff nurses of Hospital Selayang. The validity of the questionnaire was evaluated by calculating the percentage of sensitivity and specificity at the different score level. Both percentage of sensitivity against specificity were plotted to produce a ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristics) curve, and score 52 has the highest both sensitivity and specificity was used as an overall index that expresses the probability that measure the psychosocial problems. For reliability purposes, a descriptive of Test-Retest Mean Scores and Paired Sample T-Test and the coefficient-correlation test were calculated. The Test-Retest Mean Scores and Paired Sample T-Test for all 26 scales were calculated and showed statistically not significant. The reliability of the questionnaire and its 26 scales was assessed by using Pearson (r) (overall questionnaire r within a range of 0.00 to 1.00). The COPSOQ appears to be a reliable and responsive measure of workers for Malaysian use and can be applied for assessing psychosocial work environment factors.
Manual work is associated with increased lung cancer risk possibly because of increased exposure to occupational and other carcinogens, reduced use of health care services and/or a less healthy lifestyle. The aim of this study was to examine whether the association between manual work and lung cancer risk has changed over time. Three separate retrospective studies were carried out over a 10-year period (1996-1997, 1998-2000 and 2003-2005) in patients attending a bronchoscopy clinic to investigate lung cancer risk in an area of Manchester characterised by high deprivation and unemployment. Cases (n=321) were patients newly diagnosed with a tumour of the lung, trachea or bronchus and controls (n=542) were patients free of tumours at the time of, and prior to, examination. Patients were interviewed using the same structured questionnaire for associations between risk factors and lung cancer examined. The study population in all three studies was similar with little difference in smoking history. In each study smoking was associated with lung cancer risk. Lung cancer risk was higher in manual workers (compared to managers and other professionals) in the first (OR 2.50, 95% CI 1.20 – 5.05) and second study (OR 2.73, 95% CI 0.97 – 7.70) but not the third (OR 0.97, 95% CI 0.58 – 1.61). However, the summary odds ratio (meta-OR) for lung cancer in manual worker was 1.81 (95% 1.75 – 1.87) after controlling for sex, age and smoking. This study suggested that even after taking into account known occupational and environmental causes of cancer, there was a residual cancer risk associated with manual work, high risk working populations of lung cancer. However this appears to have attenuated recently for as yet unknown reasons.