Abstract
Background: Poor psychosocial work conditions are known to foster negative health consequences. While the existing literature on this topic focus mainly on white-collar workers, the influence of different aspects of the psychosocial work environment in physically demanding jobs remain understudied. Likewise, senior workers represent a population of the workforce at increased risk of adverse health outcomes and premature exit from the labour market. This study investigates the association between psychosocial work factors and perceived stress among the senior work force. Methods: Utilizing cross-sectional findings, this study reports associations between psychosocial factors (organizational justice, cooperation and collegial support, decision latitude, clarity of tasks, and quality of leadership) and the outcome of perceived stress quantified by Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale (CPSS). Currently employed senior workers with physically demanding jobs were included in the analyses (n = 3386). Associations were modeled using general linear models with weights to make the estimates representative. Results: For all individually adjusted psychosocial variables, the category of “good” was consistently associated with lower stress scores compared to the categories of both “moderate” and “poor” (all p < 0.0001). Likewise, in the mutually adjusted analysis, the category of “good” was statistically different from “poor” for all included variables, while the category of “moderate” remained different from “poor” for “clarity of tasks”, “cooperation and collegial support”, and “decision latitude”. Conclusions: Among senior workers with physically demanding jobs, poor ratings of organizational factors related to the psychosocial work environment are consistently associated with high stress scores. Blue-collar occupations focusing primarily on physical risk factors are recommended to increase awareness on psychosocial aspects that may be relevant to the local work environment.
Highlights
Since the first scientific article with the term “psychosocial work environment” embedded in the title was published in 1982 [1], this field of research has experienced exponential growth within academia and public health alike [2]
The current sample includes 3386 senior workers with physically demanding jobs, with Table 1 depicting demographics and weighted prevalence of the five included psychosocial variables related to the work environment
Classification of Occupations (ISCO), we have recently shown that workers with physically demanding jobs exhibit increased odds of musculoskeletal pain compared with more sedentary jobs, they are likely to experience at least the same degree of psychosocial stress [36]
Summary
Since the first scientific article with the term “psychosocial work environment” embedded in the title was published in 1982 [1], this field of research has experienced exponential growth within academia and public health alike [2]. While the existing literature on this topic focus mainly on white-collar workers, the influence of different aspects of the psychosocial work environment in physically demanding jobs remain understudied. Senior workers represent a population of the workforce at increased risk of adverse health outcomes and premature exit from the labour market. This study investigates the association between psychosocial work factors and perceived stress among the senior work force. Methods: Utilizing cross-sectional findings, this study reports associations between psychosocial factors (organizational justice, cooperation and collegial support, decision latitude, clarity of tasks, and quality of leadership) and the outcome of perceived stress quantified by Cohen’s. Conclusions: Among senior workers with physically demanding jobs, poor ratings of organizational factors related to the psychosocial work environment are consistently associated with high stress scores. Blue-collar occupations focusing primarily on physical risk factors are recommended to increase awareness on psychosocial aspects that may be relevant to the local work environment
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