Multidimensional assessment of mental state in occupational health care - Combined application of three questionnaires: Tokyo University Egogram (TEG), Time Structuring Scale (TSS), and Profile Of Mood States (POMS)

We attempted to develop a brief test battery to assess mental state for use in occupational health care settings. As a first step, we focused on the following three psychosocial aspects: ego state, behavioral pattern, and mood state which were considered to be closely related to mental state. To evaluate these parameters, we selected three established self-rating questionnaires: the Tokyo University Egogram for ego state, the Time Structuring Scale for behavioral pattern, and the Profile of Mood States for mood state. The combination of these three questionnaires was applied on 300 healthy company employees and school teachers (170 males and 130 females). Five ego-state factors (Critical Parents, Nurturing Parents, Adult, Free Child, and Adapted Child), five behavioral pattern factors (Withdrawal, Rituals and Pastimes, Activities, Intimacy, and Games), and six mood state factors (Tension-Anxiety, Depression-Dejection, Anger-Hostility, Vigor-Activity, Fatigue-Inertia, and Confusion-Bewilderment) were scored. Of 85 correlations between test factors, 49 in males and 61 in females were not significant, indicating that each test in this battery assessed aspects of mental state rather independent of those assessed by the others. However, significant correlations (P < 0.05) were observed for remaining pairs of test factors, indicating that these three parameters were also interrelated with each other, indicating that mental state could be elucidated more comprehensively by assessing all three psychosocial parameters than by assessing only one. The possibility that this battery could be used in the future in worksite health promotion programs is discussed.