The Relationships Between Hindrance Stressors, Problem Drinking, and Somatic Complaints at Work

Abstract

Problem drinking is an important behavioral phenomenon with numerous implications for employees’ health and well-being within and outside the workplace. Although recent research has demonstrated that workplace stressors have effects on employees’ problem drinking, additional research is needed to examine the role employees’ problem drinking plays in the workplace stress–strain process. We draw from the transactional model of stress and the self-medication hypothesis to address this gap in prior research by offering a novel explanation for the indirect effects of hindrance stressors on employees’ somatic complaints at work through problem drinking. Overall, we find support for the hypothesized model using a time-separated data collection with a heterogeneous sample of employee respondents from the United States ( n = 223). This study extends prior stress research by making two important contributions to theory and research. First, we make an empirical contribution by examining problem drinking and somatic complaints at work, which are both understudied organizational phenomena that have importance to numerous organizational stakeholders. Second, we draw from the transactional model of stress and the self-medication hypothesis in a novel way that provides an important explanation for why hindrance stressors in the workplace are indirectly associated with somatic complaints at work through employees’ use of problem drinking as a self-medication coping mechanism.