Cultural Adaptation and Validation of the Health and Work Performance Questionnaire in German

BACKGROUND Research interest in presenteeism as a productivity loss has grown given its estimated costs for organizations. To enable researchers in German-speaking countries to compare their findings internationally, a validated German Health and Work Performance Questionnaire (HPQ) version is needed. METHODS First, the HPQ was translated from English into German, culturally adapted, and tested using cognitive debriefing in interviews. Second, the structural validity of the item measuring presenteeism as productivity loss was tested. RESULTS Overall, 14 problems with items were identified in the cognitive debriefing. Of these, 57% were comprehension problems. Two of three alternative hypotheses for discriminative validity were accepted. No discrimination was possible for individuals with or without chronic disease. CONCLUSIONS The German HPQ has satisfactory cross-cultural validity and can be used to measure overall performance, as well as presenteeism in a specified sample with health problems.