Based on COPSOQ: the in-depth survey on psychosocial strain

When the psychosocial risk assessment has to hold up — in front of the works council, the labour inspectorate or your own management — the questionnaire based on COPSOQ is the more thorough instrument: 59 questions, evaluated in scales.

What sets it apart from a survey of your own?

The questionnaire is based on the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire, an established instrument for measuring psychosocial factors at work. Its questions are not freely worded but bundled into scales — demands, influence and development opportunities, social relationships and leadership, strain outcomes. A questionnaire you assemble yourself delivers opinions; a questionnaire with fixed scales delivers values you can classify and compare over time.

When is the COPSOQ the right choice?

It is worth it when you are setting the assessment up thoroughly for the first time, when a concrete conflict or a conspicuous area lies behind it, or when the results are meant to carry an investment decision. For a quick start or an annual repetition, the shorter standard survey is often the more realistic choice — participation is simply higher at 24 questions. A good complement is the best practice Psychosocial risk assessment: start with the standard survey.

How are anonymity and evaluation handled?

The COPSOQ is permanently anonymous too: individual answers cannot be attributed, and the evaluation appears as a group picture across the scales. Conspicuous scales are the starting point for measures — and the reason the survey is repeated after they have been implemented: only the second round shows whether anything has moved.

How do you actually start?

Create the survey, adjust the questions for this run if needed, invite anonymously, read the results as a scale profile, derive measures and document them. The AI interview mode is deliberately blocked for psychosocial assessment questionnaires — an assessment under § 5 ArbSchG (German law) is collected in a form, not in a chat. When the assessment has to be repeated is explained in the guide Repeating the psychosocial risk assessment.