Associations of effort-reward imbalance at work and reported symptoms in different groups of male and female public transport workers
✍ Scribed by Peter, Richard ;Geißler, Heinrich ;Siegrist, Johannes
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 122 KB
- Volume
- 14
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0748-8386
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This study tests associations between stressful working conditions in terms of eort-reward imbalance and reported physical symptoms in public transport workers. We hypothesize that bus-and subway drivers suer from relatively highest level of ill health as compared to repair service workers and administrative personnel, and that a substantial part of this association is due to the imbalance experienced between high eort and low reward. 1337 employees participated in the present study. Measures of eort-reward imbalance were constructed from a large battery of standardized Likert-scaled items, and factor-based symptom scales were computed.
After adjustment for relevant confounders multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed signi®cantly elevated prevalence odds ratios in bus-and subway drivers suering from eort-reward imbalance (in four out of ®ve factor based symptoms scores). Similar, but less pronounced eects were observed in repair service personnel while elevated risk in administrative personnel suering from eort-reward imbalance was observed only with regard to one symptom score: gastro-intestinal symptoms.
In conclusion, stressful working conditions as de®ned by eort-reward imbalance are associated with high rates of reported symptoms in public transport workers, especially so in professional drivers. In view of long-term costs and reduced quality of life associated with high rates of reported symptoms, these results call for improved worksite health promotion in speci®c target groups of public transport workers.