By María José Rosas Carmona and Said Enrique Jiménez Pacheco
How many times have we been told that poor sleep, living with stress, or feeling emotionally drained is simply “part of the job”? In many organizations, psychological distress becomes visible too late—when it has already manifested as absenteeism, poor performance, turnover, workplace conflict, or disability leave.
Mental health should not be addressed only when a crisis emerges; it can also be measured, monitored, and protected proactively.
With this in mind, the study Development and initial psychometric evaluation of the LA-Mental Health Scale in working adults presents an evaluation of a scale designed for economically active adults in Latin America.
The LA-Mental Health Scale (LA-MHS) addresses a specific need: a brief, culturally relevant measure to assess workers’ psychological well-being from a preventive perspective.
A Snapshot of Workplace Well-Being
Assessing mental health in the workplace is much like checking a car’s vital indicators. No one waits for the engine to completely fail before checking the brakes, oil, or temperature. Similarly, organizations should not wait for emotional strain to become a crisis before asking what is happening with their teams.
The LA-MHS was designed to identify relevant signs across four interconnected dimensions:
- Anxiety, reflected in persistent worry, nervousness, a sense of threat, or physical arousal.
- Stress, associated with feeling under pressure, facing excessive demands, or having little control over day-to-day responsibilities.
- Sleep problems, including difficulty falling or staying asleep, insufficient rest, or waking due to accumulated worry and tension.
- Subjective well-being, understood as the presence of positive emotions, a sense of calm, optimism, and the ability to enjoy everyday life.
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This integration matters because mental health is not simply the absence of symptoms. A person may show no significant signs of anxiety and still feel unmotivated, disconnected, or experience low well-being.
Likewise, sleep, stress, and anxiety often influence one another. Assessing them separately can leave out an important part of the picture.
LA-Mental Health Scale: A Promising Tool
The study evaluated the scale’s internal structure in a sample of 308 working adults from several Latin American countries. Using advanced psychometric analyses, the findings provided initial evidence supporting the use of the LA-MHS, particularly for its anxiety and stress dimensions.
This suggests that the tool appears to consistently capture key aspects of psychological distress in workplace settings.
The study also examined a brief 12-item version that could be useful when organizations need short, efficient assessments that can be administered on a broad scale. However, this version should be interpreted with caution, as it requires further validation in independent samples before it can be recommended for widespread use.
One of the most important contributions of the LA-MHS is its preventive focus. Unlike clinical instruments designed to identify mental disorders, this scale is not intended to label individuals or replace a professional psychological assessment. Its purpose is to provide useful information for monitoring risks, identifying needs, and guiding early interventions in the workplace.
The study also found that the LA-MHS could help organizations answer questions that often go unnoticed: Are teams experiencing high levels of stress? Is sleep deteriorating? Are there areas where emotional well-being is low? Which groups could benefit from preventive interventions? Are workplace mental health programs producing measurable changes?
Having data like these does not solve problems on its own, but it can help organizations stop making decisions in the dark. A well-designed assessment can be the first step toward developing more responsive internal policies, targeting resources, evaluating well-being programs, and fostering informed conversations about workplace mental health.
The Scale’s Limitations
Scientific rigor also means acknowledging limitations. The LA-MHS is still in an early stage of development. Although the findings are promising, the study indicates that the well-being and sleep dimensions require further refinement. The scale also needs to be evaluated in larger, more diverse, and more representative samples, as well as tested to determine whether it performs similarly across gender, age, country, occupation, and industry.
Longitudinal studies are also needed to determine whether the scale can detect changes over time and whether its scores are associated with organizational indicators such as absenteeism, performance, turnover, or responses to interventions.
These limitations do not diminish the scale’s contribution. On the contrary, they show that it is a tool still in development, one built transparently with a clear path for future research.
The mental health of workers is not a luxury or a secondary concern. It is a basic condition for living, collaborating, creating, and sustaining personal and organizational goals. Measuring it responsibly can help shift the workplace from a reactive approach—acting only after harm has occurred—to a preventive one, grounded in data and care.
Reference
Rosas-Carmona, V., Jiménez, J., & Hernández-Moreno, F. P. (2026). Development and initial psychometric evaluation of the LA-Mental Health Scale in working adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 17, 1823291.
Author
Said Enrique Jiménez Pacheco. He is a research professor in the Department of Clinical Psychology at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at Tecnológico de Monterrey and a national researcher with SECIHTI. He holds a Ph.D. in Psychology. His work focuses on measuring and quantitative modeling of mental health, with an emphasis on the development and validation of psychometric instruments for use in educational and workplace settings.
María José Rosas Carmona. A clinical and health psychologist and graduate of Tecnológico de Monterrey, she currently serves as Clinical Strategy and Research Manager at Cuéntame. Her work focuses on mental health, organizational well-being, sports psychology, and projects involving vulnerable populations.
