Abstract
BackgroundIn most countries, the financial service sector has undergone great organizational changes in the past decades, with potential negative impact on bank workers' mental health. The aim of this paper is to estimate the prevalence of minor psychiatric disorders (MPD) among Brazilian bank workers and to investigate whether they are associated with an adverse psychosocial working environment.MethodsA cross-sectional study of a random sample of 2,500 workers in a Brazilian state bank in 2008. The presence of MPD was determined by the General Health Questionnaire.(GHQ). Psychosocial work conditions were assessed by means of the Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) and Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ). The presence and magnitude of the independent associations between MPD and adverse psychosocial working conditions were determined by Prevalence Ratios, obtained by Poisson regression.ResultsFrom 2,337 eligible workers, 88% participated. The prevalence of MPD was greater among women (45% vs. 41%; p > 0.05). In the multivariate analysis, the prevalence of MPD was twice as high among bank workers exposed to high psychological demand and low control at work and under high effort and low reward working conditions. The lack of social support at work and the presence of over-commitment were also associated with higher prevalence of MPD. A negative interaction effect was found between over-commitment and effort-reward imbalance.ConclusionThe prevalence of MPD is high among bank workers. The results reinforce the association between MPD and adverse psychosocial working conditions, assessed by the JCQ and ERI models. The direction of the interaction observed between over-commitment and ERI was contrary to what was expected.
Highlights
In most countries, the financial service sector has undergone great organizational changes in the past decades, with potential negative impact on bank workers’ mental health
The results show that minor psychiatric disorders (MPD) is highly prevalent among bank workers being more common among those exposed to adverse psychosocial working conditions, assessed by means of demand-control and Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) scales
As MPD constitute an important cause of temporary leave and invalidity pensions among bank workers in the country [5], it is possible that individuals with severe mental disorders did not participate in this work, underestimating the prevalence of MPD in the study population
Summary
The financial service sector has undergone great organizational changes in the past decades, with potential negative impact on bank workers’ mental health. A report by the International Labor Organization shows that this modernization has led to the development of a number of concerns for financial service workers, such as increasing time pressure, excessive work demands, role conflict, ergonomic insufficiencies, problematic customer relations and an increase in reported cases of stress and violence [1]. Given the conceptual difficulties involving the study of mental health, there is a growing use of indicators such as minor psychiatric or non-psychotic disorders. These disorders indicate a certain affect on the worker’s psychological life structure, in the interrelations with his/her social and working lives [6]. While the job demandcontrol model emphasizes task-level control, the effortreward imbalance model emphasizes the rewards given to employees
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