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

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.

Exploring differential health effects of work stress: a latent class cluster approach

“…Again, this effect was relatively weak. Overall, these findings largely conform to previous studies that found both job and personal resources to be important predictors of health and psychological well-being (Kalimo, Pahkin & Mutanen, 2002; Mayerl et al, 2016). …”

“…In a second step, we estimated a multinomial logistic regression model by having the latent variable for symptom clusters regress on the latent variable for stress profiles. Moreover, given that job resources and self-efficacy were found to show substantial relationships to both work-related stress and health (see e.g., Mayerl et al, 2016; Xanthopoulou et al, 2007), we controlled for their confounding effects by including them as covariates in the final regression model. Additionally, we considered gender, age, education, and occupational groups.…”

Peer Review #1 of "Exploring differential health effects of work stress: a latent class cluster approach (v0.2)"

“…Again, this effect was relatively weak. Overall, these findings largely conform to previous studies that found both job and personal resources to be important predictors of health and psychological well-being (Kalimo et al, 2002;Mayerl et al, 2016).…”

“…Moreover, given that job resources and self-efficacy were found to show substantial relationships to both work-related stress and health (see e.g. Mayerl et al, 2016;Xanthopoulou et al, 2007), we controlled for their confounding effects by including them as covariates in the final regression model. Additionally, we considered gender, age, education, and occupational groups.…”

Prevalência de Afastamentos por Transtornos Mentais e do Comportamento Relacionados ao Trabalho em Professores

“…Embora os transtornos mentais possuam uma etiologia multicausal em que conjuntos de diversos fatores interagem de modo complexo (Jaques, 2007), pode-se considerar na contribuição dos estressores presentes no atual contexto educacional e organização do trabalho docente devido às categorias de afastamento dos professores investigados. Estudos têm revelado forte associação entre estressores ocupacionais e transtornos mentais em professores (Carlotto & Câmara, 2015;Gasparini et al, 2006;Guglielmi & Tatrow, 1998;Mayerl, Stolz, Waxenegger, Rásky, & Freidl, 2016). O afastamento em professores possui um agravante relacionado às características do seu trabalho, com altas demandas cognitivas, pois segundo Zijlstra et al (2006), quanto maiores as demandas cognitivas antes do absenteísmo, mais difícil o retorno, fazendo com que o trabalhador passe a considerar uma outra opção de trabalho.…”