Psychosomatic symptoms in human service work

Abstract

This study reports on subjective health of personnel in human services and other occupations. A mail questionnaire was sent to 8296 employees in the Social Insurance Organization (SIO) and the Individual and Family Care (IFC) in social welfare agencies. The response rate was 69.1% or 5730 persons. Perceived health was measured by a standard form widely used in occupational health services, FHV004D, here split into four principal components, indicating psycho-vegetative, musculoskeletal, immunological, and gastro-intestinal health. In relation to reference data on other human service personnel (nurses, teachers) and white collar workers (bank and insurance personnel), the studied groups scored much higher on psycho-vegetative symptoms (OR:s about 3), higher on musculo-skeletal symptoms (OR:s about 1.7), but had equal scores on the other symptom types. It is concluded that self-reported psychovegetative and musculoskeletal health is especially problematic in SIO and IFC, indicating stress in human service work. It is hypothesized that an adversary relation to clients can be an aggravating factor in that context.

Stress Markers in Relation to Job Strain in Human Service Organizations

“…Because of the requirement of anonymity no formal non-participation analysis could be done, but indirect data from the larger project [2]did not indicate a major bias due to differences in sociological characteristics between participants and non-participants, as pointed out above. However, in a correlation study a complete participation is not needed, provided that the sample is not biased by self-selection, but the strength of the associations may be weakened by drop-outs.…”

“…However, the participants had responded twice to the questionnaire on job conditions, first in the large project and then in the present study. The response rate of the large project was 69.9% and non-participation was found to be random in a non-response analysis [2]. Aggregate responses from the two study occasions could thus be compared, showing whether the participants in this study were different.…”

“…The subjective health of personnel in social insurance and social welfare agencies was explored in a Swedish survey based on a standardized questionnaire. The studied groups scored much higher on psychovegetative and musculoskeletal symptoms than other groups in a reference material, indicating a high degree of mental stress [2]. An extensive description of the organizational changes and social turbulence within the Swedish public sector at the beginning of the 1990s is given in a case study of eight social insurance agencies in a Swedish county [3].…”

Assessment of burnout among health workers and bankers in Aba south local government area, Abia state, South East Nigeria

“…[7] Though there is basically no profession that is free from some level of burnout, professions such as medical, teaching, banking, and managers have been known to have a higher risk of burnout than others. [8] Studies have shown an incidence of up to 30% burnout syndrome among teachers [9] and 10% for health professionals. [10] These professions are people-oriented (interactions with other people; clients, students, customers, patients etc.)…”