Noblet Andrew
Deakin University, Victoria, Australia.
Health Promot Int. 2003 Dec;18(4):351-9. doi: 10.1093/heapro/dag407.
Occupational stress is a serious threat to the health of individual workers, their families and the community at large. The settings approach to health promotion offers valuable opportunities for developing comprehensive strategies to prevent and reduce job stress. However, there is evidence that many workplace health promotion programs adopt traditional, lifestyle-oriented strategies when dealing with occupational stress, and ignore the impact that the setting itself has on the health of employees. The aim of the present study was to address two of the barriers to adopting the settings approach; namely the lack of information on how psycho-social work characteristics can influence health, and not having the confidence or knowledge to identify or address organizational-level issues. A comprehensive occupational stress audit involving qualitative and quantitative research methods was undertaken in a small- to medium-sized public sector organization in Australia. The results revealed that the work characteristics 'social support' and 'job control' accounted for large proportions of explained variance in job satisfaction and psychological health. In addition to these generic variables, several job-specific stressors were found to be predictive of the strain experienced by employees. When coupled with the results of other studies, these findings suggest that work characteristics (particularly control and support) offer valuable avenues for creating work settings that can protect and enhance employee health. The implications of the methods used to develop and complete the stress audit are also discussed.
职业压力对个体劳动者、他们的家庭以及整个社区的健康构成严重威胁。以环境为导向的健康促进方法为制定预防和减轻工作压力的综合策略提供了宝贵机会。然而，有证据表明，许多工作场所健康促进项目在应对职业压力时采用传统的、以生活方式为导向的策略，而忽视了工作环境本身对员工健康的影响。本研究的目的是解决采用以环境为导向的方法的两个障碍；即缺乏关于心理社会工作特征如何影响健康的信息，以及缺乏识别或解决组织层面问题的信心或知识。在澳大利亚一个中小型公共部门组织中进行了一项涉及定性和定量研究方法的全面职业压力审计。结果显示，工作特征“社会支持”和“工作控制”在工作满意度和心理健康的解释方差中占很大比例。除了这些一般变量外，还发现了几个特定于工作的压力源可预测员工所经历的压力。结合其他研究结果，这些发现表明工作特征（特别是控制和支持）为创造能够保护和促进员工健康的工作环境提供了宝贵途径。还讨论了用于开展和完成压力审计的方法的意义。
