Support at work is usually discussed in the language of difficult days: a colleague steps in when a shift becomes overwhelming, listens after a stressful encounter or helps solve a problem. New research suggests that this is only part of the social environment that matters. How coworkers respond when something goes well may deserve its own place in the measurement of workplace support.
A peer-reviewed study published in BMC Psychology on 28 September 2026 developed and tested an 18-item measure designed specifically for healthcare staff. The researchers argue that conventional support measures often concentrate on help during adversity and can overlook what psychologists call capitalization, the social process through which sharing positive events can amplify their benefits.
The study began with interviews involving 16 healthcare workers and then tested the resulting scale using survey responses from employees at three Chinese hospitals. Of 878 responses received, 626 remained after data cleaning, meaning 28.7% of the original responses were excluded. The final analysis supported a structure with one broad coworker-support factor alongside three more specific dimensions: general support, support during negative events and support during positive events.
Why good news can be a workplace resource
Most people recognise the value of a supportive colleague during a crisis. Positive experiences are less obviously treated as moments when support matters. Yet telling a coworker about an achievement and receiving enthusiasm, recognition or shared excitement can shape how the event is experienced.
This distinction is particularly relevant in healthcare, where demanding work can coexist with moments of professional pride, successful teamwork and meaningful patient outcomes. A measure that only asks whether coworkers help when things go wrong may therefore miss part of the social climate surrounding staff.
The researchers called their instrument the Perceived Coworker Support for Healthcare Staff scale, or PCS-HS. Rather than assuming all supportive behaviour is interchangeable, they designed it to capture general support as well as responses to both negative and positive workplace events.
How the researchers built the scale
Scale development started before the large survey. The team reviewed previous research and conducted case interviews with 16 representative healthcare staff. From this work they developed a preliminary set of items organised around three conceptual dimensions. The research group then reviewed wording, clarity and whether individual questions adequately represented the intended dimensions.
The resulting 18-item version was incorporated into an anonymous online survey. Data were collected in 2023 from three hospitals in China. Participants also completed established workplace measures, including instruments assessing burnout and psychological safety. This allowed the researchers to test more than whether the new questions clustered together statistically. They could also examine whether scores behaved in theoretically sensible ways alongside established indicators of workplace well-being.
In total, 878 hospital employees responded. After the researchers applied their data-cleaning procedures, 626 cases were retained for analysis. The 28.7% attrition between initial responses and the analytical sample is important context because scale-validation results ultimately describe the retained respondents rather than every person who initially submitted the survey.
One broad factor, with three distinct layers underneath
The statistical analyses supported a bifactor structure. In practical terms, the 18 questions could be understood as reflecting a strong general tendency to perceive coworkers as supportive, while still retaining meaningful specific components for general support, negative-event support and positive-event support.
That matters for interpretation. A hospital employee may have an overall sense that colleagues are supportive, but the social response to adversity is not necessarily identical to the response to success. A team might be dependable when someone is struggling yet relatively muted when a colleague has something worth celebrating. Conversely, a socially enthusiastic workplace may still fail to provide effective help during difficult moments.
The researchers report evidence for reliability, criterion-related validity and incremental validity. Criterion-related validity asks whether the new measure relates to established constructs in ways that theory would predict. Incremental validity goes a step further by asking whether the scale contributes useful information beyond measures already available. Together, these tests are central to establishing whether a new psychological instrument adds more than a fresh set of similarly worded questions.
The study is about measurement, not a workplace intervention
The findings should not be read as evidence that encouraging coworkers to celebrate one another will automatically reduce burnout or improve hospital performance. The study was designed primarily to develop and validate a measurement tool. Its workplace well-being analyses establish associations and psychometric relationships, not experimental effects.
This distinction is especially important because all large-sample data were collected through an anonymous survey at one period rather than through a randomised intervention or longitudinal experiment. A person who feels psychologically safe may perceive coworker behaviour more positively, supportive coworkers may contribute to that safety, or both may reflect a broader organisational culture. Cross-sectional data cannot fully separate those possibilities.
Nor does the scale imply that positive-event support should replace practical assistance during stressful periods. Its contribution is additive. The researchers are arguing that workplace support may be more completely understood when both sides of working life are measured.
Why the distinction could matter for healthcare teams
Healthcare organisations often monitor burnout, job satisfaction, psychological safety and organisational support. A more specific measure of coworker relationships could help researchers investigate which social processes sit behind those broader indicators.
The positive-event dimension is particularly interesting because it shifts attention from support as repair to support as reinforcement. When a worker shares a successful procedure, a solved problem or professional recognition, the reaction from colleagues may influence whether that success becomes a socially meaningful resource. That idea is consistent with capitalization research, but the new scale attempts to make it measurable in a healthcare workplace context.
For managers, the immediate implication is not to chase a target score. A validated scale is most useful when it helps diagnose patterns and evaluate hypotheses. If future studies show that different forms of coworker support predict different outcomes over time, organisations could then design more targeted interventions rather than treating workplace support as a single undifferentiated concept.
Important limits on what can be concluded
The study has several boundaries. The analytical sample came from three hospitals in China, so the scale’s structure and interpretation should be tested in other healthcare systems, occupations and cultural settings before broad generalisation. Workplace relationships can be shaped by professional hierarchies, staffing models and cultural expectations, all of which may affect how support is expressed.
The data were self-reported, creating the possibility of common-method effects and differences in how respondents interpret interpersonal behaviour. The 28.7% reduction from received responses to the final analytical sample also means that the validation rests on a selected subset of respondents after cleaning.
Most importantly, the cross-sectional survey cannot establish that coworker support causes better well-being. Longitudinal studies could test whether changes in perceived support precede changes in burnout, psychological safety or other outcomes. Intervention studies would be needed to determine whether deliberately changing team behaviour improves those outcomes.
A broader way to ask whether colleagues are supportive
The value of the PCS-HS lies in a deceptively simple idea: supportive relationships are visible not only when people struggle, but also in how others respond when things go right.
By separating general, negative-event and positive-event support while retaining an overarching support factor, the study gives researchers a more detailed tool for examining workplace social resources. The next question is whether that richer measurement can predict meaningful changes in healthcare workers’ experiences over time and whether the structure travels successfully beyond the three hospitals in which it was developed.
Source Information
Study: Chen, Z., Bai, M., Xian, Y. et al. “Sharing weal and woe: the perceived coworker support scale for healthcare staff.” BMC Psychology (2026).
Published: 28 September 2026.
DOI: 10.1186/s40359-026-05591-2.
Study design: Scale development using literature review and 16 case interviews, followed by an anonymous cross-sectional validation survey in three Chinese hospitals. Researchers received 878 responses and retained 626 for analysis.
Funding: The authors reported no financial support.
