Combined workplace stressors and their relationship with mood, physiology, and performance.

The majority of working individuals are exposed to low levels of a large number of potential stressors. Although each is unlikely to be particularly detrimental in itself, such stressors may be harmful cumulatively. The aim of this study was to investigate whether exposures to combinations of stress...

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Publicado en:Work & Stress Vol. 20; no. 3; pp. 245 - 259
Autores principales: Wellens BT, Smith AP
Formato: research tables/charts Journal Article
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Jul-Sep2006
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd
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        2009482628
        10.1080/02678370601022712
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        atl: Combined workplace stressors and their relationship with mood, physiology, and performance.
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          Wellens BT
          Smith AP
        affil: Centre for Occupational and Health Psychology, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Wales
      sug:
        subj:
          Affect
          Stress, Occupational Physiopathology
          Task Performance and Analysis
          Adolescence
          Adult
          Aged
          Analysis of Variance
          Attention
          Blood Pressure
          Data Analysis Software
          Descriptive Statistics
          Educational Status
          Factor Analysis
          Female
          Funding Source
          Hydrocortisone Analysis
          Male
          Marital Status
          Middle Age
          Post Hoc Analysis
          Pretest-Posttest Design
          Psychological Tests
          Pulse
          Questionnaires
          Reaction Time
          Repeated Measures
          Saliva Analysis
          Self Report
          Visual Analog Scaling
          Wales
          White Collar Workers
          Work Environment
          Human
          Adolescent: 13-18 years
          Adult: 19-44 years
          Aged: 65+ years
          Middle Aged: 45-64 years
          Female
          Male
      ab: The majority of working individuals are exposed to low levels of a large number of potential stressors. Although each is unlikely to be particularly detrimental in itself, such stressors may be harmful cumulatively. The aim of this study was to investigate whether exposures to combinations of stressors were associated with harmful levels on some measures of mood, physiology, and performance. The study was conducted with 84 participants, all employed, mostly 'white-collar' workers. A questionnaire was administered and physiological outcome measures were taken on four occasions: before and after work on the first and last days of one working week (repeated measures, within-subjects factor). Workers were categorized as exposed to either: (1) no stressors, (2) temporal stressors only, (3) physical stressors only, or (4) both temporal and physical stressors (between-subjects factor). Data were analysed using mixed design ANOVAs. Key significant between-subjects effects were found for blood pressure and salivary cortisol; participants exposed to a combination of stressors had significantly elevated levels of both. The identified physiological differences are tentatively supported by the literature and can be explained by increased subjective stress levels. Significant differences in performance were not found. This may be explained by methodological issues, or participants' increased effort expended to perform on the tasks. It is concluded that the consideration of combined (low level) stressors and cumulative exposure is important in assessing the health risk associated with the work environment.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        research
        tables/charts
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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