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Background Job-anxiety, as distinguished from trait-anxiety, is associated with long-term sickness absence. The prevalence of job-anxiety within a working population is not known. Identifying individuals who would benefit from intervention might be useful.
Aims To investigate job-anxiety in employees not undergoing treatment for mental health illness, firstly by assessing the level of job-anxiety and work-related avoidance tendencies in a working sample, and secondly by testing whether job-anxiety is distinguishable from trait-anxiety.
Methods Cross-sectional survey of a convenience sample obtained through personal contact distribution. Employees from different professional settings completed an anonymous questionnaire and provided information on their employment status. The State-Trait-Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T) was used to measure trait-anxiety and the Job-Anxiety-Scale (JAS) was used to assess job (state) anxiety.
Results There was a 69% response rate (240 responses); 188 responses were available for analysis of whom 62% were women. There were no employees with high trait-anxiety. Ten employees (5%) reported increased job-anxiety and of these nine employees reported high 'tendencies of avoidance and workplace absence'. Avoidance was most often accompanied by the comorbid job-anxieties 'job-related social anxiety', 'fear of changes at work' and 'fears of existence', 'anticipatory' and 'conditioned' job-anxiety and 'panic symptoms'.
Conclusions In this sample, self-reported job-anxiety appeared as a specific type of anxiety as opposed to trait-anxiety. In the workplace job-anxiety can present as job-avoidance and sickness absence and should be distinguished from trait-anxiety. In practice, employers and occupational health practitioners should be aware of those employees prone to sickness absence.
People with mental disorders, especially personality disorders, often face low acceptance at work. This is particularly problematic when returning to work after sick leave, because it impedes reintegration into the former workplace. This study explores colleagues’ reactions towards a problematic worker dependent on the returning person’s reintegration strategy: The returning person undertaking changes in their behaviour is compared with the person requesting adjustments of the workplace. In an experimental study, 188 employed persons read one of four vignettes that described a return-to-work-situation of a problematic co-worker. Across all vignettes, the co-worker was depicted as having previously caused problems in the work team. In the first vignette, the co-worker did not change anything (control condition) when she returned to work; in the second, she asked for workplace adjustments; in the third vignette she initiated efforts to change her own behaviour; and the fourth vignette combined both workplace adjustments and behavioural change. Study participants were asked for their reactions towards the problematic co-worker. Vignettes that included a behavioural change evoked more positive reactions towards the co-worker than vignettes without any behavioural change. Asking for workplace adjustments alone did not yield more positive reactions compared to not initiating any change. When preparing employees with interactional problems for their return to work, it is not effective to only instruct them on their statutory entitlement for workplace adjustments. Instead, it is advisable to encourage them to proactively strive for behaviour changes.
Background: Occupational therapy is an important co-therapy in psychiatric therapy. It is a common belief that no risks are associated with occupational therapy. Negative effects caused by group therapy, especially occupational therapy, have not been in the focus of research yet. In this study we want to illustrate possible types and intensities of group side effects through occupational therapy. Patients and Methods: Patients of an inpatient rehabilitation facility filled out the Adverse Treatment Reaction Group Checklist. The checklist contains 47 items divided in six dimensions: group size, content, group participants, group outcome and global. The self-rating used a 5-point likert scale (0 = not at all; 4 = verymuch, extremely stressful) and gives information about types and intensities of the side effects. Results: 88.9 % of 45 patients reported negative effects of occupational group therapy. 28.9 % of the patients rated the side effect as at least severe. Discussion: Occupational therapy is associated with side effects as every other group therapy. Possible side effects caused by group therapy should be considered while planning and implementing occupational therapy.
Ein großer Anteil der Erwerbstätigen ist aufgrund gesundheitlicher Einschränkungen einmalig oder mehrfach in seiner Berufsbiografie längere Zeit arbeitsunfähig. Auf Grundlage etablierter psychologischer Konstrukte und empirischer Befunde wurde ein spezifisch arbeitsbezogenes Inventar für Job-Coping und Rückkehrintention (JoCoRi) entwickelt. Der Selbsteinschätzungsfragebogen wurde an drei unabhängigen Stichproben (N = 243, N = 337, N = 111) von Rehabilitationspatienten aus Psychosomatik, Orthopädie, Kardiologie und Neurologie geprüft. Faktorenanalytische Ergebnisse der ersten Stichprobe bestätigen eine mehrfaktorielle Struktur. Das Inventar enthält 30 Items in 7 Skalen: 1. Arbeitsbezogene Rückkehrintention und -planung, 2. Arbeitsbezogene Selbstwirksamkeitserwartung, 3. Arbeitsbezogene Selbstberuhigung und Selbstinstruktion, 4. Arbeitsbezogene externale Kontrollüberzeugung, 5. Aktives Coping am Arbeitsplatz, 6. Bedeutung der Arbeit, 7. Kontrollüberzeugung bzgl. der Arbeitsaufnahme. Die Varianzaufklärung liegt bei 68 %. 25 Items haben Hauptladungen > .60. Interne Konsistenzen und Trennschärfen sind überwiegend zufriedenstellend. Die Modellgüte der konfirmatorischen Faktorenanalyse ist überzeugend. Das Modell ist in einer unabhängigen Stichprobe stabil (N = 337). Die Skalen wurden mit inhaltlich analogen Globalkonstrukten validiert. Die mehrfaktorielle Struktur kann in der zweiten Stichprobe repliziert werden. Eine längsschnittliche Analyse der dritten Stichprobe prüft die prädiktive Validität der Rückkehrintentionsskala; sie wird hinsichtlich Arbeitsunfähigkeitsdauer und Arbeitsfähigkeitsstatus bestätigt.
Work anxiety is a potentially disabling mental health problem, which can cause (long-term) sickness absence. In many cases patients do not openly report their anxieties and tend to give externalizing explanations of inner problems. Therefore people with work anxiety may perceive their workplace more negatively than those without such anxiety. To investigate the relation between subjective work description and work anxiety. There were 148 inpatient participants and 8015 general population controls. Patients with work anxiety described their workplace significantly more negatively than patients without work anxiety and employees in the general population, with no differences in workplace descriptions between psychosomatic patients without work anxiety and the general population sample. The type of complaint about work conditions was related to the specific type of work anxiety. Reports about workplace burdens can be indicative of work anxiety and should prompt further in-depth assessments. The content of complaints about work conditions may point to the type of underlying work anxiety.