Job Strain and Health-Related Quality of Life of Hospital Employees: Case of a Medical Center in Tai-Chung

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to explore job stain and health related quality of life (HRQOL) for hospital employees in a medical center. Methods: A cross-sectional survey by self-administered questionnaires using the Chinese Version of the Job Content Questionnaire (C-JCQ) and the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL) Taiwan version to measure job strain and HRQOL, respectively. Using stratified random sampling procedure, the survey data was collected from 500 employees working in a medical center located in Tai-Chung. Results: Slightly less than 10% of the employees in the sample had high-strain jobs. The overall score of HRQOL was 51.56, among four subscales, these employees scored highest on the physical health subscale and lowest on the environment subscale. The C-JCQ subscales and WHOQOL subscales were found to have a significantly highly correlation, and the high strain group was as likely to report a lack of quality of life on the psychological scale than the low strain group. In examining the predictors of HRQOL, it was found seniority, job control, work-related social support, physician dummy variable, and nurse dummy variable explained 48.2% of the variance in HRQOL. Conclusions: the findings in this study can help management executives and cabinet policy-makers to pinpoint the problem of job strain. They should build effective stress management strategies to avoid the stress hazards affect on the mental and physical health of employees, and to thereby improve employees’ health and well-being.