The MAastricht Instrument for Sustainable Employability – Italian version (MAISE-IT): a validation study

BACKGROUND: Governments and employers aim to promote sustainable employability (SE) in aging societies. In the Netherlands, an instrument for capturing the employee perspective on SE, the MAastricht Instrument for Sustainable Employability (MAISE-NL), has recently been developed. This study seeks to validate the Italian version of the MAISE (MAISE-IT). METHODS: The MAISE-IT (a translated and culturally adapted version of the MAISE for the Italian population), the Work-Health Balance questionnaire and a demographic survey (age, gender, education, and occupational activity) were completed online by 455 respondents (328 public administration workers and 127 respondents recruited from social networks). Construct and criterion validity were tested by CFA; reliability, correlational analyses and subgroup differences with ANOVAs. RESULTS: The CFA analysis revealed that the MAISE-IT consists of 12 scales distributed in four areas: (1) Meaning of SE; (2) Level and Factors affecting SE; (3) Overall responsibility for SE; and (4) Responsibility for factors affecting SE. Construct and criterion validity and reliability were good. Italian workers reported a moderately high level of SE. They regarded employers to be somewhat more responsible for SE than employees. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed the validity of the MAISE-IT in the Italian context. The MAISE-IT is valuable for tapping employees’ needs in order to develop SE interventions tailored to the employee perspective. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-12872-z.