[Association between demographic characteristics and psychosocial factors of job stress in a sample of health care workers employed in two Italian hospitals]. / Correlazioni tra variabili demografiche e fattori psicosociali di stress occupazionale in un campione di operatori sanitari di due aziende ospedaliere.

BACKGROUND: Job stress has negative effects on both health care work ers' (HCW) health and on work organization. OBJECTIVES: To assess whether the presence of stressful conditions, individually considered, or combined in the iso-strain model, is significantly associated with specific socio-demographic characteristics, also with the aim of providing organizational tools for management to reduce stress in the working environment according to Italian law 81/2008. METHODS: The extended version of the Job Content Questionnaire was administered to 265 healthy HCW in seven paired wards of two hospitals. The five psychosocial scales Job Demand (JD), Job Control (JC), Social Support (SS), Skill Underutilization (SuS), and Job Insecurity (JI) were calculated. The factors JD, JC, and SS were combined together to separate a group of 33 HCW in iso-strain conditions from another group of 232 HCW not in iso-strain conditions. Several socio-demographic variables were collected. RESULTS: Statistically significant associations were found between socio-demographic characteristics and psychosocial factors, whereas the iso-strain conditions were not related to any socio-demographic parameter. CONCLUSIONS: Data suggest the need for alternative policies to reduce job stress: for example, actions addressed to operative units or HCW with specific socio-demographic characteristics could be effective in improving individual psychosocial factors; however, integrated actions aimed at reorganizing the working environment as a whole should be implemented to correct iso-strain conditions.

[Correlation between job satisfaction and stress factors, burn-out and psychosocial well-being among nurses working in different healthcare settings]. / Correlazione tra soddisfazione lavorativa e fattori di stress, burnout e benessere psicosociale tra infermieri che lavorano in differenti ambiti sanitari.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and the causing factors of job dissatisfaction in three subgroups of nurses working in different context: i) hospital wards for acute patients, ii) units for long-term patients, and iii) home care for chronic patients. An anonymous, self report questionnaire was used, composed by socio-demographic, burnout, stress and psychosocial (INRS) standardized variables. A specific summarizing item was also employed to evaluate the perception of job satisfaction. One hundred thirty seven out of 190 delivered questionnaires were returned (72.1%). About 30% of the total sample is unsatisfied, 28% of the sample suffered emotional exhaustion, 20% depersonalization, and 43% declared a low level of personal accomplishment. Stress scores beyond the threshold value of 17 were found for anguish (22.7 +/- 155), anxiety (22.3 +/- 15.8) and gastroenteric symptoms (19.0 +/- 17.8). Psychosocial scores beyond the threshold value of 50 were found for the variables general job load (56.7 +/- 19.8), attention (83.8 +/- 20.9), and social support from the supervisor (51.3 +/- 25.3). The logistic regression analysis suggested that coming from extracommunitarian Countries (OR: 3.76; CI: 1.04-13.65; p < 0.05), working with acute patients (OR: 2.94; CI: 0.85-10.11; p = 0.08), home-care of chronic patients (OR: 73; CI: 11.27-473.0; p < 0.001), assumption of psychodrugs (OR: 5.01; CI: 1.40-17.92 p < 0.01), and anxiety (OR: 3,71; CI: 1.20-11.44; p < 0.05), were factors significantly associated with a low job satisfaction compared to the other subgroups. On the contrary, a high work degree of work involvement (OR: 0.37; CI: 0.14-0.97; p < 0.05) resulted to be a protective factor respect to job disaffection. These findings suggest that changes that have been occurring in the last years in the social conditions and in health organization in Italy can deeply influence the degree of job satisfaction among the nurses. In order to improve the analysis of the welfare state of the health workers, more effective methods of analysis should be used, in addition to the questionnaires.