Emotional job demands within helping professions: Psychometric properties of a version of the emotional job demands scale

People working in helping professions are particularly exposed to emotional demands at work, as emotional situations are a typical component of helping relationships with service users. The main aim of this study is to test the psychometric properties of the Emotional Job Demands brief scale proposed by Xanthopoulou, Bakker, and Fischbach (2013) in the Italian context. The sample consisted of 302 Italian healthcare professionals. Exploratory, confirmatory, and multigroup factor analyses showed that the scale had a two-correlated factor structure which was invariant across gender, age, and professional seniority. The first factor - called "emotional charge of job" - captures the perceived emotional charge of a job and the second factor - called "dealing with users' complaints" - captures the emotional demands of dealing with negative relationships with service users. The two factors were correlated with other constructs, as expected. The practical implications, limitations of the study, and possible future research lines are discussed.