Development and validation of the quality of life scale for Chinese coal miners with pneumoconiosis (QOL-CMP): Measurement method and empirical study

Over the past decades, there has been enormous concern about labor conditions in developing countries particularly around work for the coal production market. Quality of Life (QOL) is of vital importance to be considered and promoted for occupational disease and safety accident prevention, which makes it urgent to undertake research on coal miners’ QOL. This study addresses QOL issues related to Occupational Safety and Health for people suffering occupational disease from work demanded because of energy trade arrangements. The research was designed to develop a scale for coal miners with pneumoconiosis (CMP) for measuring the QOL of these patients. This scale was developed using the combined generic and disease-specific theory. As indicated by the research results based on grounded theory (50 patient in-depth interview records and 322 opening questionnaires) and formal investigation (1345 questionnaires), this scale consists of five dimensions: physiological quality, psychological quality, environmental quality, relationship quality and economic quality based on 63 items. The perceived QOL was found to differ significantly among demographic variables and length of hospital stay. The patients were divided into five clustering groups by K-means cluster analysis: economically comfort (16.51%), physiologically comfort (14.20%), psychologically comfort (18.36%), environmentally comfort (18.36%), and the trapped (37.10%). The overall QOL scores in the psychologically comfort group (2.33) were higher than that in other groups and the scores in the trapped group (highest occupation) were lowest (1.74). The QOL-CMP scale exhibited reasonable degrees of validity and reliability. Management suggestions are proposed to provide a reference for improving the overall QOL of Chinese coal miners with pneumoconiosis, which greatly enhances the research content of occupational health and energy sustainability.