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The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the associations between psychosocial stressors, urine sugar levels, and subsequent birth outcomes, specifically high birth weight babies and Caesarean section births. In a prospective cohort study, 506 Black and White women of childbearing age were followed for the duration of one pregnancy in Tuscaloosa and Mobile counties in Alabama from 1990 to 2001. Participants were interviewed twice throughout pregnancy, during the first and third trimesters, respectively, and birth outcome data were collected via medical chart reviews. Six percent (6.1%) of the women in the sample had a high birth weight baby, and 18.4% received a C-section during childbirth. Adjusted logistic regression results indicate that urine sugar levels are predictive of high-weight births, with women who have higher urine sugar levels were more than three times likely to birth a high weight baby compared with women who have no detectable urine sugar spill (OR 3.25; 95% CI 1.30, 8.10). In addition, the interaction of familial social support throughout pregnancy, physical or verbal abuse during the second and third trimesters, and ethnicity is significantly associated with increased risk of having a high birth weight baby. For C-section, single participants are over two times less likely to receive a C-section during childbirth compared with currently married participants (OR 0.46; 95% CI 0.21-1.00). Examining structural equation modeling results; pathways leading from urine sugar levels, physical or verbal abuse during the latter half of the pregnancy, and a mother's social support among White participants are indicative of high weight births (R² = 0.65). White abused women who receive their mother's social support are more likely to have a high birth weight baby compared with both White and Black women who are not abused and receive the same amount of social support. Recommendations to public health practitioners include primary prevention through promotion of familial support during pregnancy, secondary prevention through urine sugar screening at every prenatal visit, and direct intervention by identifying and inquiring about instances of suspected abuse during pregnancy.

This research explores whether a firm's psychosocial stressors contribute to strains or outcomes important to the organization. The psychosocial stressors chosen for study include: role conflict and ambiguity, workload (qualitative and quantitative), participative decision making, autonomy, and security. Independent variables were the emotional strains of job satisfaction and job commitment. The independent variables for behavioral strains included injury, lost days, workers' compensation claims, and absenteeism. Three moderators: age, gender, and social support were evaluated for interaction effects. The study sampled 77 occupationally injured and 81 non-injured employees from one medium sized Army community hospital. This study uses multivariate hierarchical multiple set regression as its principal analytical method. The hierarchial procedure orders the sets into an a priori hierarchy and enters each set sequentially from the hierarchy, evaluating the increase in $\rm R\sp2.$ The results suggest that psychosocial stressors are significant variables to consider when investigating workers' emotional and behavioral strains. For example, age, participation, and satisfaction were found statistically significant in differentiating between the occupationally injured and the non-injured samples. The study also found that ambiguity, participation, and autonomy influenced emotional strains. Additionally, age and social support appear to moderate the relationship between some psychosocial factors and emotional and behavioral strains. Age moderated the relationship with only emotional strains, while social support moderated both emotional and behavioral strains. Further, social support was found to have a main effect on the emotional strains of satisfaction and commitment, but not on any behavioral ones. Age was found to have a direct effect on the behavioral strains of workers' compensation claims. Finally, although not statistically significant when entered as a set and evaluated using the statistical analysis techniques in this study, a relationship between age and workers' compensation claims and qualitative workload and absenteeism were suggested. The economic and human costs associated with occupational injury are staggering. These findings suggest that attention to psychosocial factors within control of the employer, can promote good management outcomes, improve employee quality of worklife, and contain costs.

Tyrimo tikslas - nustatyti patiriamų patyčių darbe, psichosocialinių stresorių darbe ir darbuotojų subjektyviai vertinamos sveikatos sąsajas. Tyrime dalyvavo 167 vieno didžiojo Lietuvos miesto įmonės, susijusios su prekių gamyba, darbuotojos moterys. Patiriamoms patyčioms darbe įvertinti buvo naudojamas Patikslintas negatyvių veiksmų klausimynas (NAQ-R) (Einarsen, Hoel, Notelaers, 2009). Klausimynas sudarytas iš 22 klausimų. Psichosocialinius stresorius darbe įvertinti buvo naudojamas trumpasis klausimynas įvertinti psichosocialinius rizikos veiksnius (SIMPH) (Notelares, De Witte, Van Veldhoven, &Vermunt, 2007). Klausimynas sudarytas iš 36 klausimų. Darbuotojų subjektyviai vertinamai sveikatai įvertinti buvo naudojamas klausimynas, kurį sudaro 20 klausimų, susijusisų su nusiskundimais sveikata (Smith, Johal, Wadsworth et al., 2000). Tyrimo metu buvo atlikta faktorinė analizė ir išskirti šeši faktoriai, iš kurių penki buvo naudoti duomenų analizėje (nusiskundimai, susiję su peršalimu, su nuovargiu ir stresu, galvos ir nugaros skausmai, nusiskundimais, susiję su virškinimo ir kvėpavimo sistema). Taip pat buvo įtrauktas klausimas apie asmens subjektyvų savo sveikatos vertinimą – „Kaip įvertintumėte savo bendrą sveikatos būklę?“ (McDowell, 2006). Tyrimo rezultatai parodė, kad tam tikri psichosocialiniai stresoriai darbe yra susiję su patyčiomis darbe, taip pat su nusiskundimais sveikata ir prasčiau subjektyviai vertinama darbuotojų sveikata bei vyresniu amžiumi. Dažniau... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The aim of the study was to assess the relationships among women‘s bullying at work, psychosocial stressors at work and subjectively assessed health. The subjects of the study were 167 women who work in an organization related to production of goods in one of the biggest cities of Lithuania. For the assessment of bullying at work, Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R) was used (Einarsen, Hoel, Notelaers, 2009). It consists of 22 items. For the assessment of psychosocial stressors at work, Short Inventory to Monitor Psychosocial Hazards (SIMPH) was used (Notelares, De Witte, Van Veldhoven, &Vermunt, 2007). It consists of 36 items. The questionnaire of health symptoms was used for the assessment of subjective health (Smith, Johal, Wadsworth et al., 2000). It consists of 20 items. Factor analysis was done, six factors were developed, five factors were used for the further data analysis. Factors were named as follows: symptoms of cold, symptoms of tiredness and stress, headaches and back pain, symptoms of the digestive system and symptoms of the respiratory system, an additional question was used: „In general, how would you rate your overall health now?“. The results of the study showed that some psychosocial stressors at work are related to bullying at work, health symptoms, lower assessment of subjective health, and older age. More frequent bullying at work is related to some health symptoms, lower assessment of subjective health, also older age and lower education level... [to full text]

Tyrimo tikslai - įvertinti psichosocialinių stresorių išreikštumą darbuotojų grupėse atsižvelgiant į sociademografinius rodiklius ir nustatyti psichosocialinių stresorių darbe ir psichologinio atsparumo ryšį su darbuotojų sveikatai palankiu elgesiu. Tyrimo metodas - anketinė apklausa. Darbuotojų psichosocialiniams stresoriams nustatyti naudotas ilgasis COPSOQ II (2004-2005) klausimynas. Nustatant darbuotojų psichologinį atsparumą, panaudota dispozicinio psichologinio atsparumo skalė (angl. Dispositional Resilience Scale, DRS15-R, Bartone, 2007). Tyrime dalyvavo 151 biuro darbuotojai, kurių amžius yra nuo 23 iki 55 metų. Tyrimo rezultatai atskleidė, jog darbuotojų psichosocialinių stresorių vertinimas skiriasi skirtingose socialinėse demografinėse grupėse: darbuotojai vyrai labiau nei moterys linkę teigti, kad darbe turi dirbti dideliu tempu; vyresni darbuotojai labiau nei jaunesni patiria nesaugumo jausmą dėl darbo vietos, jaučia didesnį darbo-šeimos disbalansą ir konfliktą. Kuo labiau darbuotojai subjektyviai vertina, kad darbo vietoje patiria didelį darbo krūvį, jų darbas reikalauja daug kognityvinių resursų, kuo labiau jie linkę manyti, kad turi slėpti savo emocijas darbo vietoje ir patiria didesni darbo-šeimos vaidmenų pusiausvyros konfliktą, mažiau jaučia savo įtaką darbo vietoje, mažesnes vystymosi galimybes, turi mažesnį darbo prasmės pojūtį, mažiau jaučiasi patenkinti savo atlygiu už darbą, mažiau aiškiai suvokia savo vaidmenį organizacijoje, prasčiau vertina... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The aims of the study were to assess the severity of psychosocial stressors employee groups according to sociodemographic indicators and to assess the relationship of psychosocial stressors at work employees‘ hardiness and health-promoting behaviour. Methodological instrument – questionnaire. It was used The Copenhagen Psychosocial questionnaire COPSOQ II (2004-2005) to determine psychosocial stressors of employees. It was used Dispositional Resilience Scale, DRS15-R, Bartone, 2007 to determine psychological resistance of employees. The subjects of the study were 151 of different gender, educational level, age (from 23 to 55), length. The research results have shown that psychosocial stressors of employees is differ in different social demographic groups: man employees are more as women employees tend to suggest an opinion that the rate of work is high: older employees more as young suffer insecurity about working place, feel bigger work-family imbalance and conflict. The more subjective the employees that work at a significant workload, they require a great deal of cognitive resources, the more they tend to believe that they have to hide their emotions in the workplace and are more work-family conflict, less feel their influence in the workplace, lower development opportunities, have lower sense of the meaning of work, the less feel satisfied with their rewards for the work, less understand their role clarity in the organization, value worse the quality of leadership, feel... [to full text]

Changes to the global economy over the past few decades along with growing support for neo-liberal policies in Canada have led to an increase in precarious, low-wage frontline service work. These kinds of occupations often involve sustained interaction with clients and have high job demands, low job control and insufficient monetary reward. Further, many of these jobs also tend to be gendered (i.e., they involve a large degree of ‘emotional’ labour or care work that is predominantly carried out by female workers). Working conditions such as these can have a negative impact on the mental health of frontline service workers leading to psychological distress and depression. Chronic stress or cumulative stressful life events can also increase vulnerability to depression. While these stressors can be exacerbated by poor working conditions, they can also exist independently of them. Comparative research across two or more frontline service occupations, similar in broad strokes but differing in workplace characteristics, is especially needed to understand how structural and contextual factors in the workplace and over the life course interact to produce depression. This thesis presents data from my supervisor (Dr. Cecilia Benoit) and colleagues’ 4-wave longitudinal study entitled “Interactive service workers’ occupational health and safety and access to health services” (Benoit, Jansson, Leadbeater & McCarthy, 2005). This is a study of three types of frontline service jobs – two in the formal economy (hairstyling and food and beverage service) and one in the shadow/informal economy (sex industry). Results of this secondary analysis demonstrate that not only do working conditions have a significant impact on the mental health of frontline service workers but that stressful life events also have very strong explanatory power in understanding why certain workers experience depression more than others. The findings indicate that sex workers have the highest levels of depression, in comparison to stylists and servers. Yet sex workers report protective factors in their jobs, including higher comparative decision latitude, that contradict much of the current literature on sex work. The thesis concludes with policy recommendations and gives direction for further research in the area of frontline service work and depression.