I NFLUENCE OF PROFESSION AL STRESS ON TEMPORA RY AND PERMANENT WORKIN G ABILITY OF EXPOSED WORKERS

Ivana Šarac Šarac,Mohammad Khair Al Junidi,Stefan Jovanović,Jovana Jovanović,Nataša Đinđić

doi:10.5633/amm.2017.0320

Abstract

Occupational stress presents a health risk and affects working ability, leaving also a significant economic impact. Our aim was to examine the effect of the level of professional stress on temporary and permanent working disability in exposed workers. The study included 3527 workers of various professions, who in the period 2011-2016 on the territory of South East Serbia did the same job for at least last five years, and who were referred by their chosen doctor to the Disability Commission for the assessment of their permanent making disability due to a work injury or illness. The number of lost working days in relation to the level of occupational stress at their workplaces (the Occupational Stress Index- score) was analyzed. There was an increase in the average number of lost working days in the subgroups of workers with higher levels of occupational stress. Additionally, the number of workers who were entitled to a disability pension increased in the subgroups of workers with a higher level of stress at work. The research implies that stress at the workplace significantly affects the temporary and permanent working ability of the exposed workers.

Highlights

In the course of the Disability Commission evaluation, they all filled a standardized questionnaire created by Belkić (2003) [13] for their subjective assessment of professional stress at their workplace, from which the total Occupational Stress Index (OSI) score at the workplace was calculated
When the whole group of subjects was divided into 7 subgroups according to the OSI score, it could be seen that each subgroup was represented by approximately the same number of subjects (Table 2)
The results of this study showed that occupational stress is an important factor which reduces the temporary and permanent work capacity in chronic diseases such as arterial hypertension, anxiety and depressive syndrome, insulin independent diabetes mellitus, cardiac arrhythmias, peptic ulcer gastrointestinal disease, cerebrovascular diseases, coronary heart disease, hyperthyroidism, injuries at work, insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and skin diseases

Summary

Introduction

Stress at the workplace [1] presents a significant health risk [2,3,4,5,6] and affects the working ability of the exposed workers, which has a significant economic impact, targeting the worker and his employer, and the national economy [7,8,9,10,11]. The duration of work absenteeism related to professional stress tended to be longer compared with absenteeism resulting from www.medfak.ni.ac.rs/amm. This study aims to examine the effect of the level of professional stress on temporary and permanent working inability of the exposed workers

Methodology

Results

Discussion