Abstract
This article introduces key concepts of work-related stress relevant to the clinical and research fields of psychosomatic medicine. Stress is a term used to describe the body's physiological and/or psychological reaction to circumstances that require behavioral adjustment. According to the Japanese National Survey of Health, the most frequent stressors are work-related problems, followed by health-related and then financial problems. Conceptually, work-related stress includes a variety of conditions, such as overwork, unemployment or job insecurity, and lack of work-family balance. Job stress has been linked to a range of adverse physical and mental health outcomes, such as cardiovascular disease, insomnia, depression, and anxiety. Stressful working conditions can also impact employee well-being indirectly by directly contributing to negative health behaviors or by limiting an individual's ability to make positive changes to lifestyle behaviors, such as smoking and sedentary behavior. Over the past two decades, two major job stress models have dominated the occupational health literature: the job demand-control-support model and the effort-reward imbalance model. In both models, standardized questionnaires have been developed and frequently used to assess job stress. Unemployment has also been reported to be associated with increased mortality and morbidity, such as by cardiovascular disease, stroke, and suicide. During the past two decades, a trend toward more flexible labor markets has emerged in the private and public sectors of developed countries, and temporary employment arrangements have increased. Temporary workers often complain that they are more productive but receive less compensation than permanent workers. A significant body of research reveals that temporary workers have reported chronic work-related stress for years. The Japanese government has urged all employers to implement four approaches to comprehensive mind/body health care for stress management in the workplace: focusing on individuals, utilizing supervisory lines, enlisting company health care staff, and referring to medical resources outside the company. Good communications between occupational health practitioners and physicians in charge in hospitals/clinics help employees with psychosomatic distress to return to work, and it is critical for psychosomatic practitioners and researchers to understand the basic ideas of work-related stress from the viewpoint of occupational health.
Highlights
Stress is a term used to define the body’s physiological and/or psychological reaction to circumstances that require behavioral adjustment
To confirm the applicability of the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model of over-commitment to the assessment of fatigue, we investigated 95 male workers in a Japanese information-technology company using the Japanese versions of the ERI questionnaire and the Profile of Mood State (POMS) [31]
These results suggest a need for interventions to reduce worker ERI, over-commitment, and fatigue, to improve productivity, and to limit occupational accidents
Summary
Stress is a term used to define the body’s physiological and/or psychological reaction to circumstances that require behavioral adjustment. These effects were in direct opposition with what was predicted based on the job strain hypothesis, which suggests that workers with high job strain have an increased risk for CVD [27]. Little medical research has focused on possible risks of mental health problems among temporary workers, who face high levels of job insecurity. These data suggest that introducing an EAP may decrease perceived psychosocial stress in a working population
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