Unexplained physical symptoms in eight organizations: Individual and organizational analyses

Abstract

Data collected from 826 people in eight American organizations concerning mass reports of symptoms and various possible indicants of stress were subjected to correlational and regression analyses. In addition, using the argument that illness was actually an organizational phenomenon, company means of 41 predictor variables were correlated with company means on the symptoms variable. The three sets of analyses indicate that reported symptoms are related to work pressure, employee income, family disharmony and dissatisfaction with company personnel practices. Limitations of the data collection effort are noted and recommendations for future investigations are made.