what is the job strain model

Full Answer

What means job strain?

Job strain is defined as the situation where one experiences high job demands combined with low control or decision latitude at work. Although some studies have not found increased risk related to job strain, many have illustrated an excess risk due to job strain of from 20% to 150% respectively.

What is an example of job related strain?

Being exhausted from overworking is a common stressor in the workplace and can often lead to poor communication between coworkers. A lack of support from employers and employees may also cause stress.

What is the job demands control model?

The Job-Demand-Control-Support model is a well-known theory that explains how job characteristics influence employees' psychological well-being (Karasek & Theorell, 1990). The model illustrates how job demands can cause stress for employees, such as heavy workload, role ambiguity, and job-related strain.

What is the difference between job strain and job burnout?

Workers with high scores for exhaustion and cynicism and low scores for professional effectiveness were considered to have burnout. High job strain was defined as facing high work demands with little control over one's work.

What is the Karasek job strain model?

Karasek's “job strain” model states that the greatest risk to physical and mental health from stress occurs to workers facing high psychological workload demands or pressures combined with low control or decision latitude in meeting those demands.

What is strain in simple terms?

a : excessive physical or mental tension also : a force, influence, or factor causing such tension. b : bodily injury from excessive tension, effort, or use heart strain especially : one resulting from a wrench or twist and involving undue stretching of muscles or ligaments back strain — compare sprain.

What are the 5 job characteristics Model?

The five core characteristics of job design are skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and job feedback. Including these characteristics in your jobs affects the following work-related outcomes — motivation, satisfaction, performance, absenteeism, and turnover.

What is job demand resource model example?

Figure 1 – The JD-R Model For example, if job demands are high and resources are low, your team members are more likely to experience greater levels of stress. You're likely to see high absenteeism and high employee turnover as a result. In this situation, you should work to increase job positives.

What are the three main job design methods?

In order to increase the motivational potential of a job, four common job design strategies are used. Each of these strategies will make an impact on one or more of the elements in the MPS formula. The strategies are job rotation, job enlargement, job enrichment, and job simplification.

What effect does job strain have on health?

As a consequence of job strain, it can also affect physical and mental health, and bring about mental exhaustion, physical fatigue and feelings of diminished competence [23].

What are the 5 stages of burnout?

What are the 5 Burnout Stages?Honeymoon phase. Like a honeymoon phase in a marriage, this stage comes with energy and optimism. ... Onset of stress phase. Eventually, the honeymoon phase dwindles, and you begin to experience stress. ... Chronic stress phase. ... Burnout phase. ... Habitual burnout phase.

What are the four stages of job burnout?

World Health Organization as a phenomenon caused by chronic stress at work, and cites four key indicating signs: Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; mental distancing from a job; feeling of negativity or cynicism towards professional duties; and a decrease in work efficacy.

What are high strain jobs?

High-strain jobs are those characterized by high demands in combination with low levels of decision latitude among employees, which appears to constitute the most problematic job type in relation to health and related outcomes.

What is an example of a behavioral strain?

Examples of behavioral strains include alcohol or drug consumption, over or under-eating, and engaging in violent behaviors.

What is an example of a job stressor quizlet?

A job stressor is a condition or situation at work that requires an adaptive response on the part of the employee. Examples are being reprimanded, Having too little time to do a task, and being toll about the possibility of being fired.

What are four of the most common work related stressors?

8 Common Workplace Stressors and How to Handle ThemLack of time or perceived lack of time. ... Too many open folders. ... Lack of Clarity / Tentative Status / Indecision. ... Lack of Knowledge. ... Change. ... Worrying about events that have not happened yet. ... Lack of Control. ... Physical Health / Relationships.

What is exploratory graphical approach?

Exploratory graphical approaches have been used (49, 54, Landsbergis et al., 1994) to examine interaction effects and thresholds (non-linear effects). For example, demands and latitude have been divided into tertiles or quartiles, and patterns of heart disease risk or blood pressure elevation examined across the resulting nine (49, Landsbergis et al., 1994) or 16 (54) exposure cells.

What is the job strain model?

Issues of self-reported vs. objective job characteristics and effect modification are, of course, also important issues for the “job strain” model. However, the “job strain” model, in contrast to the Michigan model, emphasizes the need to distinguish features of the work environment that can be categorized as demands or control (and does not simply list all job factors as potential stressors), examines the interaction between demands and control, and emphasizes the stress-producing properties of these objective factors, and not solely individual perceptions, or person-environment fit .

What is considered a high strain job?

Study participants are classified as having “job strain” (or “high strain” jobs) if they are above the median or mean on demands and also below the median or mean on decision latitude.

What are the negative effects of high job demands?

The “job strain” model (see Figure 1) states that the combination of high job demands and low job decision latitude will lead to negative physical health outcomes such as hypertension and cardiovascular disease (CVD). In addition, the model contains important predictions regarding the socialization of personality traits and behavior patterns which occurs at work. Chronic adaptation to low control-low demand situations (“passive” jobs in Figure 1) can result in reduced ability to solve problems or tackle challenges, and feelings of depression, or “learned helplessness” (58). Conversely, when high job demands are matched with greater authority and skill use (controllable stressors, or “active” jobs), more active learning and greater internal locus of control develop. This can enable individuals to develop a broader range of coping strategies. The discussion below of formulations of the “job strain” concept will primarily focus on studies of negative physical health outcomes, which have been more thoroughly reviewed.

What is decision latitude?

Decision latitude is an operationalization of the concept of control and has often been defined as the combination of job decision-making authority and the opportunity to use and develop skills on the job. (Questionnaire items from the Job Content Questionnaire which have often been used to define job demands and job decision latitude are listed in ...

Who developed the job strain model?

Robert Karasek originally developed and provided evidence the “job strain” concept and model. Karasek, writing in 1979, argues that work stress and the resulting physical and mental health effects of work stress, result “not from a single aspect of the work environment, but from the joint effects of the demands of a work situation and the range ...

Does decision latitude increase heart disease?

Research studies have provided some evidence of an interaction between demands and decision latitude in producing increased risk of heart disease and high blood pressure. However, evidence for this interaction in predicting measures of psychological strain such as anxiety and depression have not been consistent.

Why do women have lower levels of control?

Because women have lower levels of control at work, they experience more mental health risks such as depression and anxiety.

Why is overworking a stressor?

Being exhausted from overworking is a common stressor in the workplace and can often lead to poor communication between coworkers. A lack of support from employers and employees may also cause stress. Making decisions and participating is a way of support from employers and employees.

What are the effects of stress on the body?

When experiencing job strain in the form of distress at work, people are subject to headaches, stomachaches, sleep disturbances, short temper, and difficulty concentrating.

What is the most common form of stress?

Job strain. Job strain is a form of psychosocial stress that occurs in the workplace. One of the most common forms of stress, it is characterized by a combination of low salaries, high demands, and low levels of control over things such as raises and paid time off.

Why is my job so strainy?

On the negative side, one cause of job strain is low salaries. Low pay causes job strain due to living expenses. Housing expenses are extremely high, which makes it difficult for minimum wage workers to afford housing. As the minimum wage increases, the cost of living increases as well. The second cause of job strain comes from excessive workloads.

Does job strain increase blood pressure?

A 2015 meta-analysis found a similar association between job strain and stroke; the association was especially strong for women. Job strain has been found to increase the risk of higher blood pressure, but not obesity.

Is stress a negative or positive type of stress?

Stresses at work can be eustress, a positive type of stress, or distress, a negative type of stress. Job strain in the workplace has proved to result in poor psychological health, and eventually physical health. Job strain has been a recurring issue for years and affects men and women differently.

How does job strain affect health?

A 10-year prospective study of 22,086 female health professionals, published in 2012, revealed that women with active jobs (high demand, high control) and high levels of job strain (high demand, low control) were 38% more likely to experience a cardiovascular disease event (such as heart attack or diagnosis of atherosclerosis) compared to women reporting low job strain. During the study, there were 170 myocardial infarctions, 163 ischemic strokes, 440 coronary revascularizations, and 52 cardiovascular-disease-related deaths, reaffirming that cardiovascular disease is a major concern for employers and for public health.

What is job strain?

Job strain is a particularly insidious form of stress that goes far beyond overflowing inboxes or tight deadlines. It is characterized primarily by organizational environments and job structure in which employees have high levels of demands placed on them and limited control over those demands (that is, low “decisional latitude”).

What is the definition of burnout?

Job burnout was defined as physical, cognitive, and emotional exhaustion that results from stress at work. Factors contributing to burnout included most of those typically associated with job strain or job stress: heavy workload, lack of control over job situations, lack of emotional support, and long work hours.

What are the factors that contribute to unhealthy job related stress?

Other organizational and job-related factors that contribute to unhealthy job-related stress are effort-rewards imbalances, long work hours (sometimes including long commutes), job insecurity, and lack of social support on the job.

How much increased cardiovascular mortality risk is associated with high demands at work?

A Finnish study of 812 employees, followed for more than 25 years, found that employees with high demands at work and low job control had a 2.2-fold increased cardiovascular mortality risk — independent of other risk factors — compared to their colleagues with low job strain.

How many hours of overtime is bad for you?

A British study of 6,014 workers, followed for an average of 11 years, found that three to four hours of overtime per day is associated with a 1.6-fold increase in coronary heart disease risk, independent of other risk factors. (More about overtime in a future post.)

Is job strain related to hypertension?

Research suggests a causal relationship between job strain and both hypertension and cardiovascular disease. (Some studies also have linked job strain to depression, musculoskeletal disorders, dyslipidemia, physical inactivity, obesity, and adverse birth outcomes.)

What is the Job Demand Control Model?

In 1979, with his Job Demand Control Model ( JDC model or Demand Control Support (DCS) model), US sociologist Robert Karasek presented an assessment of stress and stress factors in the work environment (labour intensity) and health promotion in the workplace.

What is the latitude to organize your work according to your own ideas?

If the latitude to organise your work according to your own ideas is limited, this can lead to symptoms of stress. If it is possible for him to regulate the work himself, an employee can often handle the workload more adequately and is more motivated. Job stress and the Job Demand Control model. The Job Demand Control Model is aimed ...

What is the job stress model?

The jobs stress model is characterised by its simplicity and can be used to identify and analyse psychological fatigue or work-related stress in employees.

Why is autonomy important in work?

In jobs where control is given to time and deadlines , employees experience a lot more stress than when they can decide and use their own time schedule. This form of autonomy is therefore much more important in stress developmen...

What is latitude in work?

This latitude refers to the control that employees have about their duties and how they want to perform these tasks. It consists of both competence and decision-making authority.

What is the horizontal x axis of the job demand control model?

Robert Karasek has put his Job Demand Control model in a diagram. The horizontal x-axis shows the job demands, which can by high or low.

What are the requirements that are set at work?

These are the requirements that are set at work, including work rate, availability, time pressure, effort and difficulty. Such requirements represent the psychological stressors in the work environment.

Overview

Job strain is a form of psychosocial stress that occurs in the workplace. One of the most common forms of stress, it is characterized by a combination of low salaries, high demands, and low levels of control over things such as raises and paid time off. Stresses at work can be eustress, a positive type of stress, or distress, a negative type of stress. Job strain in the workplace has proved to result in poor psychological health, and eventually physical health. Job strain has bee…

Causes of work stress

Health effects

Gender differences

See also