Job stress and depressive symptoms among Japanese fire fighters

Abstract

High variance in workload, high intergroup conflict, high role conflict, and low self-esteem were significantly related to depressive symptoms among Japanese fire fighters. Further prospective studies are needed to clarify the influence of these stress factors on other health outcomes, and to elucidate whether alleviation of these stress factors improve the mental health among fire fighters.

Intragroup and Intergroup Conflict at Work, Psychological Distress, and Work Engagement in a Sample of Employees in Japan

“…This finding is consistent with previous studies showing that intergroup conflict was correlated with depressive symptoms in male firefighters 18,26) , which can be generalized to male employees of any company. The present study also provides evidence that intergroup conflict is associated with psychological distress in females.…”

“…Previous studies have reported that intragroup conflict has been associated with health-related outcomes, such as depressive symptoms [16][17][18] , burnout 19) , insomnia 20) , doctor-diagnosed psychiatric morbidity 21) , somatic symptoms 10) , heavy drinking 22) , self-reported health problems 23) , and organizational outcomes such as job dissatisfaction 17,18,24) , team performance ineffectiveness 24) , work disability 7) , and occupational injuries 25) . Although it was found in two studies that intragroup conflict was not associated with depressive symptoms 26) or sickness absence 27) , these previous findings consistently suggest that intragroup conflict is a strong predictor of psychological distress, which was defined in these studies as elevated cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and psychophysiological symptoms in people suffering from a wide range of different mental disorders 28) as well as of poor health status. However, the fact remains that only a handful of studies have compared males and females on the effect of intragroup conflict on psychological distress, while adjusting for the effects of social support at work 16) .…”

“…Two of these studies found intergroup conflict to be associated with depressive symptoms among male firefighters 18,26) , but another found it was not associated with job satisfaction among nurses 24) . However, because of the restricted nature of the samples, these results cannot be generalized to a broader working population.…”

Prevalence and associated factors of depressive symptoms among Chinese doctors: a cross-sectional survey

“…This result conWrmed our hypothesis, and the considerable high prevalence of depressive symptoms suggested nevertheless that Chinese doctors suVered seriously from depressive symptoms. Occupational stress, especially workload, had been well documented to be associated with depressive symptoms (Chambers and Campbell 1996;Saijo et al 2007). In the present study, role overload, role insuYciency, and role boundary were also found to be associated with depressive symptoms among Chinese doctors.…”

“…Each item had four response categories: (0) never, (1) sometimes, (2) frequently and (3) always. We deWned the 'depressive symptoms' group as CES-D ¸16 (Kohout et al 1993;Park et al 2009;RadloV 1977;Saijo et al 2007). …”