Occupational Stress and the Mental and Physical Health of Factory Workers

340 Pages·2016·6.25 MB·English

1
MBEME
Occupational Stress and
the Mental and Physical
Health of Factory Workers
James S. House
Survey Research Center
Institute for Social Research
The University of Michigan
9009
The Research Report Series of the Institute for Social Research is composed
of significant reports published at the completion of a research project.
These reports are generally prepared by the principal research investigators
and are directed to selected users of this information. Research Reports are
intended as technical documents which provide rapid dissemination of new
knowledge resulting from ISR research.
RESEARCH REPORT SERIES, INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH
Occupational Stress and
the Mental and Physical
Health of Factory Workers
James S. House
Survey Research Center
Institute for Social Research
The University of Michigan
1980
ISR Code No. 9009
Preparation of this report has been supported by
Grant No. 1 ROI MH28902 from
The National Institute of Mental Health
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data:
House, James S 1944-
Occupational stress and the mental and physical
health of factory workers.
Bibliography: p.
1. Rubber industry workers-Diseases and hygiene.
2. Tire industry workers-Diseases and hygiene.
3. Occupational diseases. 4. Job stress. I. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Stress, Psychological. 2. Occupational
medicine. WA495 H842o)
RC965.R8H68 613.6'2 80-18749
ISBN 0-87944-254-9
© 1980 by The University of Michigan, All Rights Reserved
Published in 1980 by:
The Institute for Social Research,
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
654 3 2 1
Manufactured in the United States of America
ABSTRACT
This study assessed the relation of potentially stressful objective
job characteristics to perceived psychosocial job stress and the relation
of both of these to a variety of indicators of physical and mental health.
The study also determined whether any of these relationships were conditioned
(i.e., moderated or specified) by a variety of individual (i.e., age, education,
work motivations, and aspects of the Type A behavior-pattern) and situational
characteristics (i.e., social support, exposure to physical-chemical hazards,
and piecework). The strengths of the study in relation to the literature on
occupational stress are: (a) it focused on objective job characteristics as
well as perceived stress; (b) it examined the relationship of a wide range of
job stresses to a wide range of health outcomes, thus assessing whether the
effects of any or a ll job stresses are specific to one or two health outcomes
or quite broad and general; (c) it assessed the effects of psychosocial job
stress on health, both controlling for and in conjunction with the impact of
physical-chemical hazards; (d) it considered a wide range of
potential conditioning variables and (e) i ts focus on blue collar workers.
The major source of data was a self-administered mail questionnaire sent
to a ll 2,856 workers in a tire, rubber, plastics, and chemicals plant in a
small northeastern city. The response rate was 67.6 percent overall and
70 percent among white males who constituted over 95 percent of the work force
of this plant and were the focus of our analyses. Objective ratings of
potentially stressful job characteristics were made for a ll major job types
in the plant, and limited medical examination data were obtained for a
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nonrandom subset of 353 of the 1809 white male questionnaire respondents.
The major findings were as follows:
1. A wide range of perceived occupational stress (e.g., excessive
workload, role conflict, responsibility, lack of intrinsic rewards)
were associated with both reported symptoms and medical signs of
i ll health. These results confirm and extended those of other
studies and indicate that psychosocial job stress has pervasive
adverse effects on mental and physical health.
2. Objective job characteristics were related to perceived stress
in the predicted way, but the relationships were weaker than
expected. Among the objective j ob characteristics considered,
only piecework and shiftwork had clear adverse effects on health.
3. Two conditioning variables had strong and important effects
A. Exposure to physical-chemical hazards conditioned the
relationship of perceived job stress to self-reported
respiratory and dermatological problems, but did not
affect the relationship of stress to other health out
comes. The results indicate that psychosocial job stress
may exacerbate the effects of physical-chemical hazards on
dermatological and respiratory functioning. This is a novel
and potentially very important finding, which should be
explored in further research.
B, Social support had three types of effects:
i. Support tended to be inversely related to perceived stress,
i i. Support buffered the impact of perceived job stress
on self-reported symptoms of i ll health, especially
neurotic and ulcer symptoms. That is, among workers
with high levels of support, stress had little
impact on these health outcomes, while among those
with low support, stress had substantial adverse
effects on health,
i i i. Support also "dampened" the impact of job characteristics
on perceived stress. That is, there was simply less
relation between job characteristics and perceived
stress among those with high support compared to those
with low support. However, these effects did not
necessarily result in a lower level of perceived stress
among those with high support. These results suggest
that interpersonal relations may be somewhat more
important, and job characteristics somewhat less
important than we expected in determining levels of
perceived job stress. Overall, social support should be
an important variable in future research and in any
applied efforts to reduce job stress or its impact on
health.
The major limitations of the study are: (a) its cross-sectional nature,
(b) i ts primary reliance on self-report indicators of health, and (3) its
exclusive focus on white males. Future research should increasingly be
prospective or longitudinal in nature, include more independent and objective
measures of health, and consider a wider variety of work populations (e.g., women,
minorities).
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I. INTRODUCTION AND METHODS OF THE STUDY
Chapter
1. Introduction 3
2. Data Collection Procedures and Measures of
Perceived Job Stress, Motivation and Satisfaction 23
3. The Assessment of Objective Job Characteristics 49
4. Analysis Strategy and Methods 83
PART I I. OBJECTIVE JOB CHARACTERISTICS AND PERCEIVED STRESS
Chapter
5. The Impact of Objective Job Characteristics on
Perceived Stress 103
6. Factors Conditioning the Impact of Objective
Job Characteristics on Perceived Stress 127
7. Objective Job Characteristics and Perceived Stress:
Recapitulation and Assessment 161
PART III. THE IMPACT OF JOB STRESS ON MENTAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH
Chapter
8. The Relation of Stress to Job Satisfaction and Self-Esteem. . . 175
9. Mental Health: Life Satisfaction and Neurotic Symptoms 191
10. Substance Abuse: Smoking and Drinking . .. 213
11. Occupational Stress and Physical Health
I. Self-Reported Symptoms 231
12. Occupational Stress and Physical Health
I I. Biomedical Indices of Health 253
13. Occupational Stress and Health , . . . 2 69
Table of Contents
PART IV. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Chapter
14. Occupational Stress and Worker Health:
Retrospect and Prospect 289
REFERENCES 295
APPENDICES
A. The Mail Questionnaire 303
B. Intercorrelations of Items in Tables 2.1, 2.2, 2.4, and 2.6 . 325
C. Means and Standard Deviations 331
D. The Measure of Reported Exposure to
Physical-Chemical Agents 335
E. Self-Report Indices of Physical Health. 339