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IWS-Nordic: A Nordic questionnaire assessing sexual harassment at work


Following standardized methods for questionnaire development, this project developed and validated a questionnaire to assess sexual harassment in a standardized manner, across the Nordic countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

The Danish questionnaire Inventory of Workplace Sexual Harassment (IWS) was translated into Norwegian and Swedish. Using these Norwegian and Swedish versions of the questionnaire, survey data from employees in Norway and Sweden were collected. In combination with Danish data, this pooled dataset containing survey data from the three included countries was used to evaluate the questionnaire psychometrically and to identify a core of items that measure sexual harassment similarly across the included countries.

This Nordic questionnaire (IWS-Nordic) provides an essential tool for comparative research on sexual harassment between the countries and for workplaces to initiate and monitor preventive action.

Updated 29 February 2024