The HSE indicator tool, psychological distress and work ability.

BACKGROUND: The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) indicator tool is one of the most commonly used tools for assessing the risk of work-related stress. Few studies, however, have investigated whether and how its scales are related to psychological distress or other work-related health outcomes. AIMS: To investigate the relationship between the HSE indicator tool, psychological distress, as measured by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)-12, and work ability, assessed by the Work Ability Index (WAI). METHODS: All the employees of a mid-sized bank in Italy were asked to fill in an anonymous cross-sectional questionnaire. The questionnaire was structured in four sections: the first one comprised socio-demographic questions and the other three corresponded, respectively, to the Italian translations of the GHQ-12, the HSE and the WAI questionnaires. RESULTS: Four hundred and thirteen employees completed the questionnaire. The response rate was 99%. Controlling for age and gender, the indicator subscales were negatively associated with the adopted measures of psychological distress and work ability. The GHQ score was also highly correlated with the WAI score and able to explain ≈ 47% of its variance. The only subscale that was still significantly associated with the WAI after removing the effect of psychological distress was 'control'. CONCLUSIONS: The study presents new evidence for the validity of the HSE indicator tool to estimate the risk of work-related stress and suggests that most but not all the effects of psychosocial conditions on work ability might be mediated by the level of psychological distress induced by these conditions.

The differential role of mental rumination among industrial and knowledge workers.

The nature of work has been changing. It is becoming more and more uncertain, complex, cognitively demanding, disperse in space and in time, and diverse for the people involved. It requires diffuse decision making and responsibility. Knowledge and creative work, instead of industrial, currently occupies the majority of workforce. A recent NIOSH report (2002) claims that the changing nature of work asks for new research, tools and methods for evaluating the impact of its transformations on workers' health and safety. Following this claim, the current paper investigates the process of recovery from fatigue. Since it is known that the quality of recovery may be highly impoverished by the presence of persisting and pervasive mental activity, namely, by mental rumination, the investigation focuses on the possible differential characteristics of rumination among industrial and knowledge workers. The results from a field study shows evidence that industrial and knowledge workers are differentially affected by rumination. It is suggested that rumination can be a promising early indicator of stress in knowledge occupations.

[Relations between mental health and work. Review of the literature]. / I rapporti tra salute mentale e lavoro. Esame della letteratura.

Interest in occupational mental illness has increased as a result also of the technological changes at the workplace. A total of 22 epidemiological studies on this topic were reviewed on the following basis: subject of the study, epidemiological design, type of psychometric scale, results. The authors discuss the methods and constraints of these studies, especially the lack of knowledge on occupational exposure and its relationship to mental health. The need for further studies in order to improve prevention of mental illness at the workplace is stressed.

Can an analytic/holistic dichotomy explain hemispheric asymmetries?

Same RTs to pairs of letters or other patterns are often faster than different RTs. This finding has led to hypothesize a two-process system of comparison: a fast holistic process for same and a slower analytic process for different responses. In connection with hemispheric specialization, RH has been characterized as a holistic and LH as an analytic processor. Therefore same responses should be mediated by RH and different responses by LH. In the present study, subjects made same-different judgments in the two visual fields to successively presented pairs of letters where degree of difference was systematically varied. RTs decreased with increases in the degree of difference in different responses. Same responses were faster than different. These results suggest analytic processing of different and holistic processing of same pairs. Since no clear-cut visual field superiority was found, the conclusion is that both hemispheres can process visual information analytically and holistically.

Trends in occupational health and safety policy in Italy.

Experience with and reflections on the interaction among the workplace, the society, and various institutions in the area of occupational health have played an important role in the general political debate in Italy since the 1960s. This paper describes the emergence of the worker's model of investigation into health hazards, an element unique to the Italian experience, and analyzes its impact on the organization of work, government policies, health institutions, and scientific research.

Sex-related differences in hemispheric asymmetries in processing simple geomerical figures.

16 (8 men, 8 women) subjects were required to respond same or different to pairs of geometrical figures. Same responses were given to physical identity pairs, to analog identity pairs, and to name identity pairs. Male subjects showed a left visual-field advantage regardless of the level of processing, whereas female subjects did not show a clear-cut hemispheric asymmetry. These results were discussed in terms of different processing strategies employed by the two sexes.

Laterality effects, levels of processing, and stimulus properties.

Two hypotheses of hemispheric specialization are discussed. The first stresses the importance of the kind of processing to which the stimulus is subjected, and the second stresses the importance of the nature of the stimulus. To test these hypotheses, four experiments were carried out. In Experiment 1 verbal material was employed in a same-different classification task, and an overall right visual field superiority was found. Experiment 2, in which verbal stimuli were subjected to visuospatial transformations (i.e. mental rotations), yielded no laterality effect. In Experiment 3 geometrical figures were employed in a classification task similar to that of Experiment 1, and an overall left visual field superiority was found. In Experiment 4 both verbal and geometric stimuli were employed. The results showed a significant interaction between field of presentation and nature of the stimulus and no interaction between field of presentation and level of processing.

Evidence for a right hemisphere superiority and for a serial search strategy in a dot detection task.

In Experiment I the subjects manually signaled whether a solid dot was present or not in an array of empty dots presented either in the right or in the left visual field. The dots were either three or six and the target could appear in any of the possible locations. The results showed (a) a left visual field superiority; (b) a left hand superiority; (c) faster responses to three-dot than to six-dot displays, and (d) an effect of the location of the target in the display. Experiment II exactly replicated the previous experiment with the exception that the stimuli were centrally projected. The results showed: (a) a left hand superiority; (b) an effect of the number of dots in the display. These results can be interpreted to indicate: (a) a right hemisphere specialization in a simple feature detection task without any spatial component; (b) the compatibility of a right-hemisphere advantage with a serial search strategy.

Different levels in processing simple geometrical figures.

An experiment has been conducted in order to extend to geometrical figures Posner's (1969) findings of various levels of processing for alphabetical material. Pairs of simple figures (triangles and trapezoids) were tachistoscopically presented to subjects asked to judge if they were "same" or "different". Subjects were instructed to respond "same" either if the two figures had the same shape or the same name, e.g., a scalene triangle paired with a right-angled one. The results support the theory of different levels of processing also for geometrical figures.