The incorporation of different demand concepts in the job demand-control model: effects on health care professionals

Abstract

This paper reports a study of 212 health care professionals that focuses on job characteristics as predictors of employee health. By means of covariance structure modelling (LISREL 8) we tested the interactive assumptions of the Karasek (1979) Job Demand-Control (JD-C) Model [Karasek, R.A., Jr., 1979. Job demands, job decision latitude, and mental strain: implications for job redesign. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24, 285–307.] using three different concepts of job demands (i.e. psychological job demands, physical demands and emotional demands) in combination with a more focused measure of decision latitude (i.e. job autonomy) to predict employee health (i.e. job satisfaction, job involvement, emotional exhaustion and psychosomatic health complaints). Controlling for gender and age, the results partly support the JD-C hypotheses by finding three out of twelve assumed interaction effects. More specifically, different outcome variables are predicted by different combinations of job autonomy with the three kinds of job demands, respectively. In conclusion, although we refute the central hypotheses of the JD-C model to a large extent, the current (interactive) findings are quite illuminating and will be discussed in the context of their theoretical and practical implications. Researchers as well as practitioners have to broaden their perspective on ‘job demands’ in health care work and need to focus on different kinds of job demands to capture the complexity of this work setting.