The Role of Personal and Job Resources in the Relationship between Psychosocial Job Demands, Mental Strain, and Health Problems

Hannes Mayerl,Erwin Stolz,Anja Waxenegger,Éva Rásky,Wolfgang Freidl

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01214

Abstract

Recent research highlights the importance of both job resources and personal resources in the job demands-resources model. However, the results of previous studies on how these resources are related to each other and how they operate in relation to the health-impairment process of the job demands-resources model are ambiguous. Thus, the authors tested an alternative model, considering job and personal resources to be domains of the same underlying factor and linking this factor to the health-impairment process. Survey data of two Austrian occupational samples (N1 = 8657 and N2 = 9536) were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). The results revealed that job and personal resources can be considered as indicators of a single resources factor which was negatively related to psychosocial job demands, mental strain, and health problems. Confirming previous studies, we further found that mental strain mediated the relationship between psychosocial job demands and health problems. Our findings suggest that interventions aimed at maintaining health in the context of work may take action on three levels: (1) the prevention of extensive job demands, (2) the reduction of work-related mental strain, and (3) the strengthening of resources.

Highlights

There is good empirical evidence for the adverse effects of psychosocial stress at work on mental and somatic health (Siegrist, 2008; Leka and Jain, 2010; Nixon et al, 2011)
High job demands were related to higher levels of mental strain which in turn were associated with ill health
We further investigated whether the exclusion of the direct pathway from psychosocial job demands to health problems resulted in a considerable decline in model fit, in comparison to the model that included this path

Summary

Introduction

There is good empirical evidence for the adverse effects of psychosocial stress at work on mental and somatic health (Siegrist, 2008; Leka and Jain, 2010; Nixon et al, 2011). Since the economic crisis is still on-going in a number of countries today and occupational demands seem to be on the rise (Leka and Jain, 2010), occupational stress research should further examine valuable factors that have the potential to attenuate the negative impact of adverse working conditions on health. Job Demands, and Health job demands-control model (JD-C model; Karasek, 1979; Karasek and Theorell, 1990) According to this model, stress reactions are due to a combination of high demands and low decision latitude or control at work. Another frequently cited model is the effort-reward model (ER model), which claims that an imbalance between (high) efforts and (low) rewards results in sustained stress reactions (Siegrist, 1996)

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