Job stress and psychosomatic health complaints among Dutch truck drivers: a re-evaluation of Karasek's interactive job demand-control model (original) (raw)
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Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2002
Objectives: Building on Karasek's model of job demands and control (JD-C model), this study examined the effects of job control, quantitative workload, and two occupation specific job demands (physical demands and supervisor demands) on fatigue and job dissatisfaction in Dutch lorry drivers. Methods: From 1181 lorry drivers (adjusted response 63%) self reported information was gathered by questionnaire on the independent variables (job control, quantitative workload, physical demands, and supervisor demands) and the dependent variables (fatigue and job dissatisfaction). Stepwise multiple regression analyses were performed to examine the main effects of job demands and job control and the interaction effect between job control and job demands on fatigue and job dissatisfaction. Results: The inclusion of physical and supervisor demands in the JD-C model explained a significant amount of variance in fatigue (3%) and job dissatisfaction (7%) over and above job control and quantitative workload. Moreover, in accordance with Karasek's interaction hypothesis, job control buffered the positive relation between quantitative workload and job dissatisfaction. Conclusions: Despite methodological limitations, the results suggest that the inclusion of (occupation) specific job control and job demand measures is a fruitful elaboration of the JD-C model. The occupation specific JD-C model gives occupational stress researchers better insight into the relation between the psychosocial work environment and wellbeing. Moreover, the occupation specific JD-C model may give practitioners more concrete and useful information about risk factors in the psychosocial work environment. Therefore, this model may provide points of departure for effective stress reducing interventions at work.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 2007
The demand/control/support and effort/reward imbalance models have relied on self-reported methods to describe how poor psychosocial working conditions lead to harmful health outcomes. The hindrance/utilization model uses an observational methodology to assess these relationships. Cross-sectional observational and self-reported data from 98 civil servants participating in the Whitehall II Study of British civil servants were used to test whether work conditions measured by each of the three theoretical models explained a significant amount of the variance in depression and anxiety symptoms. Observational measures were also used to assess potential common methods variance bias between the self-reported job conditions and the outcomes. Results showed that the demand/control/support model explained the most variance in depression and anxiety symptoms and the associations were not wholly due to common methods variance. Moreover, measures associated with job resources (e.g., skill discretion, social support and skill utilization) had a protective effect on depression and anxiety symptoms. Exertion-related conditions (e.g., demands, effort, over commitment) were not consistently associated with depression or anxiety symptoms.
A Longitudinal Test of the Demand–Control Model Using Specific Job Demands and Specific Job Control
International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 2010
Background Supportive studies of the demand–control (DC) model were more likely to measure specific demands combined with a corresponding aspect of control. Purpose A longitudinal test of Karasek’s (Adm Sci Q. 24:285–308, 1) job strain hypothesis including specific measures of job demands and job control, and both self-report and objectively recorded well-being. Method Job strain hypothesis was tested among 267 health care employees from a two-wave Dutch panel survey with a 2-year time lag. Results Significant demand/control interactions were found for mental and emotional demands, but not for physical demands. The association between job demands and job satisfaction was positive in case of high job control, whereas this association was negative in case of low job control. In addition, the relation between job demands and psychosomatic health symptoms/sickness absence was negative in case of high job control and positive in case of low control. Conclusion Longitudinal support was found for the core assumption of the DC model with specific measures of job demands and job control as well as self-report and objectively recorded well-being.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Testing assumptions of the widely used demand–control (DC) model in occupational psychosocial epidemiology, we investigated (a) interaction, i.e., whether the combined effect of low job control and high psychological demands on depressive symptoms was stronger than the sum of their single effects (i.e., superadditivity) and (b) whether subscales of psychological demands and job control had similar associations with depressive symptoms. Logistic longitudinal regression analyses of the 5-year cohort of the German Study of Mental Health at Work (S-MGA) 2011/12–2017 of 2212 employees were conducted. The observed combined effect of low job control and high psychological demands on depressive symptoms did not indicate interaction (RERI = −0.26, 95% CI = −0.91; 0.40). When dichotomizing subscales at the median, differential effects of subscales were not found. When dividing subscales into categories based on value ranges, differential effects for job control subscales (namely, decision aut...
Stress & Health, in press, 2014
Despite evidence that the accurate assessment of occupational health should include measures of both generic job demands and occupation-specific job demands, most research includes only generic job demands. The inclusion of more focused occupation-specific job demands is suggested to explain a larger proportion of variance for both direct effects and job demands × job control/support interaction effects, as compared with the inclusion of generic job demands. This research tested these two propositions via a self-report survey assessing key psychological job characteristics administered twice to a sample of correctional workers (N = 746). The research clearly identified that the assessment of correctional-specific job demands (CJD) was more strongly associated with job satisfaction, work engagement, turnover intentions and psychological strain, as compared with an assessment of generic job demands. However, the CJD did not produce a greater proportion of significant job demands × job control/support interaction effects, as compared with the generic job demands measure. The results thereby provide further support for the acknowledged ‘elusiveness’ of these theoretical interactions. Overall, however, the results did support the inclusion of occupation-specific measures of job demands for the accurate assessment of the health and job performance of high-risk workers. The implications for theoretical discussions that describe how high job demands are moderated by job resources are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Work & Stress, 2010
This study compares two theoretical models that make different assumptions about the structure of subjective health constructs and about the effects of job stressors and working time variables on health. The first model, the sequence model, is based on sequential models of the development of ill-health and posits that chronic fatigue and sleep problems mediate the effects of job stressors and working time variables on depression and somatic complaints. The second model, the general strain factor model, posits that specific health constructs (e.g., fatigue, depression, and somatic complaints) are reflections of a common general strain factor (i.e. detrimental job conditions increase the individual's sensitization to strain). In this way the study expands traditional models of stress-related effects on health. The analyses were carried out in a sample of 365 individuals in Germany. Although both models fitted the data, the general strain factor model was found to be superior. Furthermore, the effects of job stressors and working time on the health constructs fatigue and sleep quality were mediated by the general strain factor. Also, a negative relationship emerged between working time duration and general strain. It is suggested that the general strain model could be useful in future health psychology research.
Stress Medicine, 1998
Karesek's demand±control model has been extremely in¯uential and is widely used to predict a range of health outcomes, yet there have been comparatively few intervention studies and relatively little evidence of its impact on the design of work to improve health. This article discusses the tension between meeting the need for a model of psychosocial work factors and health outcomes which is simple enough to be theoretically useful in multidisciplinary research over a wide range of occupations yet is speci®c enough to generate useful information to in¯uence policies and guide interventions. It is suggested that the success of the model in driving research has led to the neglect of a range of other psychosocial factors. Furthermore, while the appeal of the model lies in its apparent simplicity, variables are too broadly de®ned and complex to easily translate research ®ndings into practical recommendations. To provide more practically useful evidence about risk factors, it is suggested that epidemiological studies should employ more clearly de®ned and speci®c variables incorporated in more complex psychosocial models which take into account the work context and the changing nature of work. # 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.