working life and its related conditions are powerful determinants of health in both positive and negative direction . health care researchers are becoming more and more concerned by the dramatic increase of psychological problems and their adverse effects such as bipolar disorders , anxiety disorders , depression , burnout , post - traumatic stress , addictive behavior and suicide . in different surveys and studies from different populations , a large proportion of employees report exposures to negative psychosocial factors at work , and the consequences are believed to be significant for the employees , workplaces and the society ( 1 ) . the concept of work and working conditions has gone through many changes in most workplaces in recent years . comprehensive changes of production conditions in industry , administration and service , as well as demands on the employees are most important ( 2 ) . these changes have sometimes resulted in increased psychological stress . furthermore , as a main consequence , sick - leave days and health care costs due to psychosocial factors have increased over the last years ( 1 , 3 ) . moreover , cardiovascular diseases , musculoskeletal disorders , burnout , reduced quality of life and decreased motivation and productivity can be the other outcomes of adverse psychosocial work factors ( 1 ) . 
 
 to evaluate the psychosocial exposures situation , it is fundamental to collect valid data of the psychological factors on the workplace in the first step . according to iranian occupational health legislature , work places are obligated to evaluate potential risk factors for different working places and perform appropriate health promotion and safety measures when needed . although psychological health is included in the definition and requisites , many employers have failed to attend to this matter properly due to lack of valid measuring instruments . therefore , we aimed to prepare the persian version of the most common and reliable measuring instrument in this field . first , we focused on the job - content questionnaire ( jcq ) and prepared the validated persian version of jcq , and we then published the results ( 4 ) . the copenhagen psychosocial questionnaire ( copsoq ) has been regarded a valid and comprehensive new instrument as it highlights more components of the complex psychosocial environment . 
 
 the copenhagen psychosocial questionnaire has been developed and validated by kristensen and borg of the danish national institute for occupational health ( 5 ) . the questionnaire was aimed to be " theory - based without being based on one specific theory . " therefore , the copsoq is covering a broad range of aspects of leading concepts and theories in this field including not only psychosocial work environment but also health , well - being and personality traits like coping style and sense of coherence . 
 
 as nubling ( 2 ) has mentioned , the following items are addressed for the work environment part : the job characteristics model , the michigan organizational stress model , the demand - control-(support ) model , the socio - technical approach , the action - theoretical approach , the effort - reward - imbalance model and the vitamin model . the copsoq tries to deal with the broadness and indefiniteness of the construct " psychosocial factors " by applying a multidimensional approach with a very wide spectrum of ascertained aspects ( 1 ) . the copsoq can be described as a generic tool applicable to all types of work places and occupations . since its validation in denmark , it has been adapted to different languages such as german , french , spanish and many others ( 2 , 6 - 8 ) . a second version of the original questionnaire has been prepared based on the feedbacks from different studies ( copsoq2 ) and has been recently validated . this version of the copsoq is more predictive of the need for recovery as an early predictor , and it is a sensitive indicator of reduced well - being . however , the original questionnaire contains important variables which need to be considered in evaluations ( 9 ) . the scientific aim of this study was the establishment of a persian version of the copsoq1 questionnaire and a detailed examination and assessment of its measuring qualities . there are three versions of the copsoq1 questionnaire : long ( 141 questions ) , medium ( 95 questions ) and short ( 44 questions ) . similar to other copsoq validation studies in other countries , the persian questionnaire was generated by using the standard translation , back - translation procedure . the various versions were compared and the wording of the final persian version was established . the medium version of the copsoq consists of 5 contexts : type of production and task ( 17 questions ) , work organization and job content ( 19 questions ) , interpersonal relations and leadership ( 24 questions ) , work - individual interface ( 8 questions ) and health and well - being ( 26 questions ) . most of the questions have five response options : ' ' to a great extent , to some extent , somewhat , a little , very little '' or ' ' always , often , sometimes , rarely , never / almost never '' . the employees of a public health service center ( 186 individuals ) in tehran - iran were sent an e - mail explaining the study and the confidentiality of the data and invited them to complete the web - based questionnaire . cronbach s alpha coefficient was calculated to assess the reliability of the scales of the questionnaire . the employees of a public health service center ( 186 individuals ) in tehran - iran were sent an e - mail explaining the study and the confidentiality of the data and invited them to complete the web - based questionnaire . factor analysis was applied to evaluate the structural validity of the translated version . principal axis factoring with varimax rotation cronbach s alpha coefficient was calculated to assess the reliability of the scales of the questionnaire . the average age of the participants was 39.5 years ( sd : 7.2 ) , and the average education time was 16 years ( sd : 1.6 ) . bartlett test was significant ( p < 0.001 ) , indicating the appropriateness of the performed factor analysis . principal axis factoring with varimax rotation was performed on 103 cases with no missing field and revealed 20 empirical factors . three factors perfectly corresponded to " type of production and task " , " work - individual interface " and " health and well - being " scales . another single factor analysis corresponded to two scales ( work organization and job content , interpersonal relations and leadership ) . only one question ( taking holidays ) was better placed in the work - individual scale . cronbach s alpha coefficients were calculated and they ranged from 0.734 in the work - individual interface to 0.822 in the type of production and task ( table 2 ) . the purpose of this study was to present the validity results of the copsoq1 in the persian language . based on the knowledge of the developers of this questionnaire , it aims at describing a large number of relevant factors in the field of psychosocial work environment , health , well - being and personality ( 1 ) . the original questionnaire showed good internal reliability and validity   and the translated versions of the copsoq in different languages also confirm that this tool is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring psychosocial factors at work ( 2 , 6 ) . our results in this study showed that the persian version of the copsoq has good validity for measuring psychosocial factors at work . however , it is generally believed that representativeness of the sample has a more determining affect than the response rate ( 10 ) . the low response rate may have resulted from the web - based nature of our survey , as highlighted in previous studies ( 11).moderate response rates had already been reported in similar web - based studies in health care settings in tehran ( 12 ) . the present questionnaire could be used at different work environments to help the employers find opportunities to improve the psychosocial work conditions ( 2 ) . the observed differences between similar work categories or within single institutions could be a good starting point to effectively plan for improving the work condition . this questionnaire could also be applied in various research projects which aim to evaluate the effect of psychosocial exposures on different aspects of personal health and organizational performance . this questionnaire can also be used to monitor the changes in the work environment through time , as already being used in other studies ( 13 ) .
background : the effect of psychosocial work environment on personal and organizational aspects 
 of employees is well - known ; and it is of fundamental importance to have valid tools to evaluate 
 them . 
 this study aims to evaluate the reliability and validity of the persian version of copenhagen 
 psychosocial questionnaire ( copsoq ) . 
 methods : the questionnaire was translated into persian and then back translated into english by 
 two translators separately . 
 the wording of the final persian version was established by comparing 
 the translated versions with the original questionnaire . 
 one hundred three health care workers completed 
 the questionnaire . 
 chronbach s alpha was calculated , and factor analysis was performed . 
 results : factor analysis revealed acceptable validity for the five contexts of the questionnaire . 
 cronbach s alpha ranged from 0.73 to 0.82 in different contexts . 

 conclusion : this study revealed that the persian version of copsoq is a reliable and valid instrument 
 for measuring psychosocial factors at work .