LEO26, Explained: What Malaysia's Psychosocial Screening Tool Actually Measures

Search for "LEO26" and you mostly find the acronym repeated back at you. Yet this 26-question survey is the instrument at the heart of every PRisMA assessment in Malaysia — the form your employees will actually fill in, and the numbers your risk classification will actually rest on. It deserves a proper explanation.

The name, decoded

LEO26 stands for Likelihood of Environment & Occupational Exposure Scale towards Psychosocial Risk in the Workplace. It is the screening tool published as Appendix 1 of the DOSH Guidelines on Psychosocial Risk Assessment and Management at the Workplace 2024 (PRisMA 2024). The tool was developed with guidance from International Labour Organisation documents, aligned with ISO 45003:2021, and validated for the Malaysian workplace before publication.

The 26 items split into three components:

Notice the components are not equal in size. Job Control carries 11 of the 26 items, nearly half the instrument. That weighting reflects something occupational health people have known for decades: the feeling of having no say over your own work is one of the most reliable predictors of psychosocial harm, more than workload alone.

How the scoring works

Each employee's responses produce three scores, one per component. Each score is compared against a published cut-off value, the Risk Indicator Cut-off Value (RICoV), which classifies that component as high or low risk for that individual. There is no medium. The cut-off principle keeps the output decisive: a work unit either needs attention on Job Control, or it does not.

From there the analysis climbs one level. The PTP counts how many people in each work unit carry a high-risk status, converts that into a cumulative percentage, and compares it against the organisational cut-off table. The result is a risk status per component, per work unit. A division can be low-risk on Work Demand and high-risk on Job Support — and that distinction is exactly what makes the findings actionable.

What your employees experience

A questionnaire, roughly 15 to 20 minutes, answered once. The guideline instructs the employer and PTP to announce the programme early. Response rate matters, because the work-unit percentages mean little if only a third of the unit replies.

What LEO26 is not

It is not a diagnostic instrument. A high LEO26 score does not mean anyone has a mental health condition; it means the conditions of work in that unit make harm more likely. It is also not a DASS-21 substitute. DASS-21 screens an individual's depression, anxiety and stress symptoms, while LEO26 profiles the workplace itself. The two answer different questions, and a competent assessment never confuses them.

What happens when a unit scores high

A high-risk status triggers the next instruments in the PRisMA toolkit: the EPC23 employer checklist, which audits what controls currently exist, and the PRiMA action-plan table, which sets the interventions. High-risk units are reassessed after 12 months; low-risk units after two years, or sooner when circumstances change. The whole sequence is laid out in the step-by-step process guide, and the role running it is described in the PTP explainer.

Dr. Kirath Sidhu (Dr. Harkirath Singh Harbans Singh) is a registered Occupational Health Doctor and certified Psychosocial Trained Person (DOSH PTP-291/26). He provides PRisMA 2024 assessments for employers across Penang and Malaysia through ASP Medical Group.