Association of occupational stress with job burnout and depression tendency in workers in Internet companies

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the association of occupational stress with job burnout and depression tendency in workers in Internet companies. Methods: From July to November, 2016, the cross-sectional method was used to perform a questionnaire survey of 3603 workers in 35 Internet companies in Beijing, Shandong Province, and Zhejiang Province in China, and the association of occupational stress with job burnout and depression tendency was analyzed. Results: Among these workers, 63.70% had occupational stress with job demand-control (JDC) and 34.60% had occupational stress with effort-reward imbalance (ERI) ; among the workers engaged in sales, 75.63% had occupational stress with JDC and 62.70% had occupational stress with ERI. Of all workers, 10.69% had job burnout, and among the workers engaged in sales, 22.12% had job burnout. Of all workers, 18.79% had the tendency of moderate-to-severe or severe depression, and among the workers engaged in sales, 46.13% had such tendency. Occupational stress with JDC increased the risk of job burnout and depression (odds ratio[OR]=3.52 and 1.85, P<0.05) , and occupational stress with ERI also increased the risk of job burnout and depression (OR=8.24 and 5.59, P<0.05) . In addition, irregular diet and insomnia were risk factors for job burnout; age ≥41 years, low income, sales position, working time spent on the screen ≥10 hours/day, insomnia, and poor self-evaluated health status were risk factors for depression tendency. Conclusion: Occupational stress with JDC and ERI increases the risk of job burnout and depression tendency, and among the workers in Internet companies, the workers engaged in sales have the most severe occupational stress, job burnout, and depression tendency.