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The forest industry is a key sector in South Korea, significantly contributing to the national economy. Despite the growth of the forest industry, workers often face physically demanding tasks, high job stress, and factors reducing job satisfaction, such as remote locations and limited career opportunities. This study analyzes differences in job satisfaction and turnover intentions among forest industry workers based on socio-demographic and job characteristics. A survey of 654 workers across various sectors—including production, processing, retail, transportation, leisure, and services—was conducted. The data were analyzed using t-tests and ANOVA. The results indicate that job satisfaction and turnover intentions significantly vary with age, education, income, employment type, workplace location, and working days. The workers with graduate degrees reported lower job satisfaction and higher turnover intentions. The non-regular employees and field workers exhibited lower job satisfaction and higher turnover intentions. The findings suggest that improving job conditions, creating quality positions for highly educated workers, and providing stable employment could enhance job satisfaction and reduce turnover intentions in the forest industry, aiding workforce retention and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Health status, sickness absence, and nurses' attrition have a direct impact on the quality of care provided and patients' health outcomes. The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated issues that existed within the Polish healthcare system prior to the pandemic, including staff shortages, low wages, and system inadequacies. The aim of this study was to investigate how nurses during the Covid-19 pandemic period rated the burdensomeness of job characteristics and their mental health status, as well as the correlations between factors directly caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and nurses' subjective assessments of job characteristics and mental health. Method: The cross-sectional study was conducted in January 2022, in Poland and involved 796 registered nurses working in hospitals. Results: Despite the pandemic's sweeping societal effects, this research finds limited alteration in nurses' perceptions of job stress and self-assessed mental health. Factors such as contact with infected patients, quarantine, and isolation do not appear to substantially modify mental health perceptions among nurses. Intriguingly, nurses subjected to COVID-19 testing report heightened stress and compromised mental health. Conclusion: The interplay of diverse factors influencing the well-being of nurses is intricately complex. It is advisable to prudently execute interventions and strategies to address the pandemic, aiming to alleviate its potential adverse effects on the mental health of nurses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives To investigate the predictive validity of 32 measures of the Danish Psychosocial Work Environment Questionnaire (DPQ) against two criteria variables: onset of depressive disorders and long-term sickness absence (LTSA). Methods The DPQ was sent to 8958 employed individuals in 14 job groups of which 4340 responded (response rate: 48.4%). Depressive disorders were measured by self-report with a 6-month follow-up. LTSA was measured with a 1-year follow-up in a national register. We analyzed onset of depressive disorders at follow-up using logistic regression models, adjusted for age, sex, and job group, while excluding respondents with depressive disorders at baseline. We analyzed onset of LTSA with Cox regression models, adjusted for age, sex, and job group, while excluding respondents with previous LTSA. Results The general pattern of the results followed our hypotheses as high job demands, poorly organized working conditions, poor relations to colleagues and superiors, and negative reactions to the work situation predicted onset of depressive disorders at follow-up and onset of LTSA during follow-up. Analyzing onset of depressive disorders and onset of LTSA, we found risk estimates that deviated from unity in most of the investigated associations. Overall, we found higher risk estimates when analyzing onset of depressive disorders compared with onset of LTSA. Conclusions The analyses provide support for the predictive validity of most DPQ-measures. Results suggest that the DPQ constitutes a useful tool for identifying risk factors for depression and LTSA in the psychosocial work environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Work design questionnaire (WDQ), as a comprehensive and integrative tool, is one of the most important instruments frequently used to assess work characteristics. The aim of this study was to measure the psychometric characteristics of the Persian version of WDQ. Methods: Translation and cross-cultural adaptation procedures were applied in translating the original WDQ into Persian. A total of 270 participants participated in this study. The validity of the questionnaire were measured using face validity, content validity, convergent validity, and construct validity based on confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Reliability was assessed through internal consistency. Results: Mean content validity index was 0.95. The CFA results indicated support for a 21-factor solution. There were significant correlations between dimensions of WDQ and both job satisfaction and perceived stress. Cronbach's alpha of all items was 0.87. Conclusion: Results indicated that the WDQ exhibited very good psychometric properties and can be applied as a useful tool to assess work characteristics among Iranian employees. Accordingly, the authors recommend its administration in future studies. The work characteristics was significantly associated with job satisfaction and job stress. Therefore, improved work design would reduce negative consequences, such as job stress, and increase positive behaviors, such as job satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Stress maintained over time leads to a state of exhaustion known as burnout syndrome. This syndrome constitutes an occupational health problem, leading to high absenteeism. It can also mean that workers come to the workplace feeling unwell, which increases occupational collisions and injuries at work. In this study, we developed a predictive model of burnout in professional drivers using the following indicators: age, hours worked, seniority, educational level, fatigue, personality, attitudes toward driving, safety behaviors in the vehicle, and work characteristics and content. Method. A total of 523 professional drivers from different transport sectors, obtained through non-probability sampling, participated in the study. We used SPSS version 25.0 to analyze the data. Results. We determined the predictive capacity of certain variables that affect drivers and cause burnout. Exhaustion can be predicted with fatigue (48.8%), professional efficiency with emotional stability (39.8%) and cynicism with lack of motivation (28%) as the best predictors. Conclusions. The results contribute to a better knowledge of those factors that cause burnout in professional drivers. It is important to design individual interventions to reduce burnout, which would help reduce sick leave and possible collisions, in addition to providing greater well-being for drivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Men extend their employment beyond pensionable age more often than women, but the factors that contribute to this sex difference are unknown. This study aimed to examine sex differences in extending employment and the contribution of sociodemographic, work- and health-related factors to these differences. Participants of this prospective cohort study were 4,263 public sector employees from Finland who reached their individual pensionable date between 2014 and 2019 and responded to a survey on work- and non-work-related issues before that date. Extended employment was defined as continuing working for over six months beyond the individual pensionable date. We used mediation analysis to examine the contribution of explanatory factors to the association between sex and extended employment. Of the participants, 29% extended employment beyond the pensionable date. Men had a 1.29-fold (95% confidence interval 1.11–1.49) higher probability of extending employment compared with women. Men had a higher prevalence of factors that increase the likelihood of extended employment than women (such as spouse working full-time, no part-time retirement, low job strain, high work time control, and lack of pain) and this mediated the association of sex with extended employment by up to 83%. In conclusion, men were more likely to extend their employment beyond pensionable age than women. This difference was largely explained by men being more likely to have a full-time working spouse, low job strain, high work time control, no pain, and not being on part-time retirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To examine the association between stress secondary to residents' responsive behaviours and job satisfaction of nurses and nursing assistants working in nursing homes. To test whether supervisory support, work effectiveness and work empowerment confound this relationship. Background: Understanding how the stress secondary to residents' responsive behaviours influences job satisfaction for staff and determining the factors influencing this relationship are important for retention of staff in nursing homes. The term 'responsive behaviours' refers to the subset of behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia. Methods: Survey responses from 191 nursing assistants and 81 nurses in five nursing homes in Ontario were analysed. Results: Staff's stress attributed to residents' responsive behaviours was negatively associated with job satisfaction. This direct effect was weakened by more than a third through the confounding net effects of supervisory support, work effectiveness and work empowerment. Conclusion: The work environment created by leaders in nursing homes can lessen the influence of stress secondary to residents' responsive behaviours on staffs' job satisfaction. Implications for Nursing Management: Supervisors need training and education to support and mentor their staff effectively, and to guide their use of evidence‐based practices that integrate the patient‐centred care approach in order to effectively respond and minimize responsive behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Research gaps existed that prior studies failed to reveal the effect of the co-existence by work stress and family stress on suicide related behaviors. • Pronounced levels of work stress and family stress, as well as a notable proportion of suicide ideation were observed among Chinese working women. • Women with both high work stress and high family stress appeared more than five-time odds of suicide ideation. • This study lends support to suicide prevention that immediate relief allocated to working women with both high level of work stress and family stress is warranted of necessity. This study aimed to explore the associations of work characteristics, work stress, and family stress with suicide ideation among working women, further to detect potential joint effects between different types of stress. From March to June in 2015, a cross-sectional survey on working women were conducted in Shenzhen, China. Demographic and work characteristics, work stress, family stress, and suicide ideation were collected. Multivariate logistic regression models were applied to assess possible associations by calculating the odds ratios (OR) and 95% confident intervals (CI). Totally 968 working women were included with a mean age of 31.62 (standard deviation: 7.43) years. The prevalence of suicide ideation was 19.4%. We found that night shift work, sickness absence, work stress, and family stress were positively associated with suicide ideation, after adjusting for age, education level, marital status, and occupation type. None joint effect on multiplicative or additive scale of work stress and family stress on suicide ideation was found (P for multiplicative and additive interaction: 0.736 and 0.595, respectively), however, women with both high work stress and high family stress appeared more than five-time odds of suicide ideation (OR: 5.253, 95%CI: 2.982∼9.252). We did not collect information on other psychosocial profiles and failed to explore potential mediated effects within current associations. This study lends support to suicide prevention that immediate relief allocated to working women with both high level of work stress and family stress is warranted of necessity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of call-center work on various physical and psychological dimensions of the individual has been subject of several studies; however, research comparing the types of services in this work context is scarce. Thus, in this study, besides analysing the characteristics of the work, the main sources of stress and the organizational commitment in this type of context, also compared the inbound and outbound services according to such dimensions. In total, 274 call-center operators participated, 191 of the inbound service and 83 of the outbound service. In the data collection the protocol used consisted in several scales, in paper format and online. It was found that participants in the inbound group perceive a greater variety of skills in their work and higher levels of stress related to family problems than the participants of the outbound group. No significant differences were found relatively to the commitment to the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives:This study integrates different aspects of ethnicity and work-related stress dimensions (based on the Demands-Resources-Individual-Effects model, DRIVE [Mark, G. M., and A. P. Smith. 2008. “Stress Models: A Review and Suggested New Direction.” InOccupational Health Psychology, edited by J. Houdmont and S. Leka, 111–144. Nottingham: Nottingham University Press]) and aims to test a multi-dimensional model that combines individual differences, ethnicity dimensions, work characteristics, and perceived job satisfaction/stress as independent variables in the prediction of subjectives reports of health by workers differing in ethnicity. Design:A questionnaire consisting of the following sections was submitted to 900 workers in Southern Italy: for individual and cultural characteristics, coping strategies, personality behaviours, and acculturation strategies; for work characteristics, perceived job demands and job resources/rewards; for appraisals, perceived job stress/satisfaction and racial discrimination; for subjective reports of health, psychological disorders and general health. To test the reliability and construct validity of the extracted factors referred to all dimensions involved in the proposed model and logistic regression analyses to evaluate the main effects of the independent variables on the health outcomes were conducted. Results: Principal component analysis (PCA) yielded seven factors for individual and cultural characteristics (emotional/relational coping, objective coping, Type A behaviour, negative affectivity, social inhibition, affirmation/maintenance culture, and search identity/adoption of the host culture); three factors for work characteristics (work demands, intrinsic/extrinsic rewards, and work resources); three factors for appraisals (perceived job satisfaction, perceived job stress, perceived racial discrimination) and three factors for subjective reports of health (interpersonal disorders, anxious-depressive disorders, and general health). Logistic regression analyses showed main effects of specific individual and cultural differences, work characteristics and perceived job satisfaction/stress on the risk of suffering health problems. Conclusion:The suggested model provides a strong framework that illustrates how psychosocial and individual variables can influence occupational health in multi-cultural workplaces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A growing literature now exists examining the relationship between organizational justice and employees' experience of stress. Despite the growth in this field of enquiry, there remain continued gaps in knowledge. In particular, the contribution of perceptions of justice to employees' stress within an organizational context of uncertainty and change, and in relation to the new and emerging concept of procedural-voice justice. The aim of the current study was to examine the main, interaction and additive effects of work characteristics and organizational justice perceptions to employees' experience of stress (as measured by their feelings of helplessness and perceived coping) during an acknowledged period of organizational uncertainty. Questionnaires were distributed among teachers in seven public primary schools in Hong Kong that were under threat of closure (n = 212). Work characteristics were measured using the demand-control-support model. Hierarchical regression analyses observed perceptions of job demands and procedural-voice justice to predict both teachers' feelings of helplessness and perceived coping ability. Furthermore, teacher's perceived coping was predicted by job control and a significant interaction between procedural-voice justice and distributive justice. The addition of organizational justice variables did account for unique variance, but only in relation to the measure of perceived coping. The study concludes that in addition to 'traditional' work characteristics, health promotion strategies should also address perceptions of organizational justice during times of organizational uncertainty; and, in particular, the value and importance of enhancing employee's perceived 'voice' in influencing and shaping justice-related decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Objective: The present study aims to investigate the relationship between effort–reward imbalance and hair cortisol concentration among teachers to examine whether hair cortisol can be a biomarker of chronic work stress. Methods: Hair samples were collected from 39 female teachers from three kindergartens. Cortisol was extracted from the hair samples with methanol, and cortisol concentrations were measured with high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry. Work stress was measured using the effort–reward imbalance scale. Results: The ratio of effort to reward showed significantly positive association with hair cortisol concentration. Conclusion: The cortisol concentration in the system increases with the effort–reward imbalance. Measurement of hair cortisol can become a useful biomarker of chronic work stress. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: Work-related stressors are often viewed as being a source for disturbed sleep. Purpose: This prospective study aimed to examine whether psychosocial work stressors were related to the development and maintenance of insomnia. Method: From a randomly selected sample from the general population (N = 3,600), 1,873 participants aged 50–60 years old in the workforce filled out a baseline and 1-year follow-up questionnaire. Stepwise logistic regressions were used to investigate whether work stressors were related to the development and maintenance of insomnia over 1 year. Results: The results showed that among individuals with no insomnia at baseline, high work demands increased the risk of developing insomnia 1 year later (4% of the variance). Among participants with insomnia at baseline, work stressors did not influence the course of insomnia over 1 year. Finally, low influence over decisions, high professional compromise, and high work demands were related to the maintenance of insomnia (9% of the variance). Conclusion: The findings indicate that perceived work stressors are, although rather weakly, associated with the development and maintenance of insomnia. This might have implications for how insomnia is conceptualized as it places work stressors in the model and for how interventions at different stages of insomnia is implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gray's reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) describes two important personality constructs; sensitivity to reward and sensitivity to punishment. In two studies, we examine whether these constructs can be considered dispositions to work stress. Results of Study 1 (N = 105 employees in different occupations) indicated that employees with strong punishment sensitivity reacted more strongly to work stressors than others. This idea was confirmed in a longitudinal design in Study 2. Reward sensitivity was unrelated to stress in both studies. Overall, results strongly support the idea that punishment sensitivity is a dispositional source of work stress. Results further confirm that RST and its derived personality measures can contribute to theorizing about personality–environment interactions in a highly relevant daily setting, namely the working environment. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study investigated whether neuroticism moderates the relations among social support (from coworkers and supervisors) and work strain characteristics (i.e. job demands and job control). A full cross-lagged panel analysis was used to test whether social support predicts job demands and control or whether job demands and job control predict support among individuals with high and low neuroticism. Workers (N = 247; 42.1% men) of five occupations filled out questionnaires twice, with a time gap of 1month. Work characteristics (job demands, job control, and social support) together with age and gender were included in a two-group path model with neuroticism as a moderator. Neuroticism moderated relations between social support and work strain characteristics: among individuals with high neuroticism, high job demands predicted low support from supervisors and low job control predicted low support from supervisors. Among individuals with low neuroticism, high support from supervisors predicted high job control. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

With smaller more efficient workforces, hotel organizations are competing to retain highly valued managers. Work stress and burnout are often cited as precursors to work and family stress, and together these factors influence employee intentions to leave an organization. However, work and family issues have received little attention in the hospitality and tourism literature. Using focus groups and semistructured interviews with three groups of participants (new entrants into the hotel industry, hotel managers, and their spouses), the authors explore the connections among work characteristics, work stress, and the work-family interface. Results of the multisource qualitative research suggest that long, unpredictable hours create individual and family-related stress. Furthermore, there is agreement among the three sources regarding the stressors and benefits associated with working in the hotel industry. Discussion of future research and practice is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aims of this 3-year follow-up study among Finnish managers (n=615) were first, to test the theoretically-based structure of the job-related affective well-being scale (Warr, 1990b), and second, to examine the linear and curvilinear longitudinal associations between work characteristics and job-related affective well-being. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the hypothesized four-factor model best described the structure of the job-related affective well-being scale; that is, the scale included four interrelated factors of job-related anxiety, comfort, depression, and enthusiasm at both measurement times. Structural equation modelling showed that high feelings of comfort at work were longitudinally associated with a positive perception of the supportiveness of the organizational climate, after controlling for sense of coherence. Conversely, the work characteristics included in this study (job control and supportive organizational climate) did not serve as antecedents of job-related affective well-being during the follow-up. In addition, there were no cross-sectional or longitudinal curvilinear associations between work characteristics and job-related affective well-being: associations were found to be linear. We conclude that (a) Warr's scale of job-related affective well-being is best conceptualized as consisting of four interrelated dimensions whose factor structure is (b) highly stable across a 3-year time interval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overall objective of this study was to examine the work characteristics that make significant contributions to extra-role performance (as measured by the helping dimension of citizenship behaviour) and employee wellbeing (measured by job satisfaction and psychological health) in a local government. The work characteristics examined were based on the demand-control-support (DCS) model, augmented by organization-specific characteristics. The results indicate that characteristics described in the core DCS are just as relevant to extra-role performance as they are to more traditional indicators of job stress. Although the more situation-specific conditions were not predictive of citizenship behaviour, they made unique contributions to job satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a need to understand the associations between attitudes towards retirement in specific occupations and various psychosocial and work-related factors. This study identified correlates of retirement thoughts and retirement preference in hospital physicians. The sample comprised 447 (251 male and 196 female) physicians from three hospital districts in Finland. After adjustment for gender, age and salary, minor psychiatric morbidity increased likelihood of retirement thoughts and retirement preference. Retirement thoughts and retirement preference were more common in doctors reporting low job control, poor teamwork and unjust supervision than in doctors perceiving their working conditions more favorably. Work preference was associated with high overwork. The associations of work characteristics with retirement thoughts and retirement preference largely persisted after control for indicators of health and social circumstances. In conclusion, in addition to demographic and financial factors and health, retirement attitudes in hospital physicians seem to be related to organizational and managerial factors that are potentially amendable to intervention. This has implications for retaining hospital physicians who might otherwise retire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Demand Control Model (DCM) and the Effort-Reward Imbalance Model (ERI) offer putative explanations of the relationship between stressful working conditions, job strain, and psychological and physical ill health. Aims: The aims of this study are to: (a) compare the predictive powers of the two models for explaining perceived job stress and mental distress amongst workers as a whole, (b) identify whether a model which combines dimensions of the DCM and ERI might have more predictive power than either of them separately, and (c) ascertain whether the models make distinct contributions to explaining stress at work in specific occupational settings. Methods: Statistical analysis was carried out on data collected from a cross-sectional postal survey of a random sample ( n =7,069), of the adult population in an urban area in Southern England. The analysis focused on the 4,135 respondents who were in paid employment. Results: There was little support for combining the models as the combined model was dominated by the predictive power of dimensions from the ERI. However, the results also showed that the models or dimensions of the models made distinct contributions to explaining perceived work stress in different types of occupation. Conclusions: There is little evidence to support a combined model of work characteristics. The ERI appears to be the stronger of the two models although the DCM has explanatory value for specific occupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: As medical service employees, physiotherapists are prone to suffer from job-related stress and are at great risk of experiencing occupational burnout. Therefore, the aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the level of generalized stress, occupational burnout syndrome and occupational stress in a group of professionally active physiotherapists and to answer the question: which psychosocial and physical factors (work characteristics) present at the given workplace were perceived as the most stress-inducing in the study group and in various subgroups? Materials and Methods: This study included 70 physiotherapists, mean age 40.1 ± 11.6, employed in sanatoria and outpatient clinics. An authorial survey, the Subjective Assessment Work Questionnaire, the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Inventory to Measure Coping Strategies with Stress Mini-COPE were used. Results: The study group of physiotherapists was characterized by a moderate level of stress, a high level of occupational stress and a moderate level of occupational burnout. The most common stressors reported by the participants included the lack of rewards at work, the sense of uncertainty resulting from workplace organization, the sense of threat, social interaction, and the lack of control. Conclusions: The knowledge of the level of occupational stress among health care professionals (including physiotherapists) and, most importantly, the assessment of stress-inducing psychosocial and physical factors present at the given workplace may prove useful while designing a prevention and health protection strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]