Impact of work and family stress on health functioning in working women

Abstract

Objective To examine the association between work stress,family stress and health functioning in urban working women. Methods A cross sectional survey was conducted in a sample of 1045 female subjects chosen randomly from the central areas in one city. The analysis of covariance was applied to compare the scores of health functioning by different levels of work stress and family stress,respectively. The multivariate general linear regression was used to investigate the association between the combined effect of work and family-related stress and health functioning.Results It was found that the scores of health functioning in high work-family stress group were lower significantly than those in low work-family stress group respectively ( P <0.01). The results of the multivariate general linear regression analysis showed all scores of health functioning were associated negatively with the combination of high work and family stress ( P <0.01). Dose-response relationships could be observed.Conclusion The psychosocial stress from work and family had adverse effects on health functioning in urban female working population and the strongest effect can be found in those women who were exposed to doublestress. Key words: Copenhagen psychosocial questionnaire; Family stress scale; Health functioning; Working women