Study On The Occupational Stress Of Female Workers

It was pointed out that about half of the labor force was female in our country on the mankind development report in 1998. Affected by the traditional concepts, the female workers were engaged in complex, stressful works and heavy housework at the same time. They were often involved into the conflicts between the "social person" and the "family person". Excessive stress can damage their physical and mental health. So the female workers' occupational stress has its own characteristics. The purpose of the current study included the following three aspects. The first is to edit, translate and revise the Occupational Stress Inventory of Female—OSIF and test its reliability and validity. The second is to measure the occupational stress, strain and the coping resources of three female occupational groups including nurses in hospital, female flight attendants in airline company and female teachers in elementary and middle school with the revised OSIF and evaluate their occupational stress levels. The third is to analyze the occurrence rate of the abnormal menstruation at different stress levels in the three female occupational groups. The results will help to assess the stress level of three groups and to take the interventive measures for enhancing the female workers' work ability and efficiency.1 Study of reliability and validity of OSIF1450 female workers were sampled from hospitals, elementary and middle schools and airline company in order to test the reliability and validity of OSIF.The reliability analysis showed that total scores of OSIF correlated significantly with the questionnaire scores (PO.01), the correlation coefficients between them were 0.85, 0.80 and -0.61 respectively. The cronbach's alpha coefficient of OSIF was higher than 0.80. It meant that OSIF had good inter-item consistency.The factor analysis showed that the cumulative rate of variance of the factors drawed from the items of OSIF ranged from 50.61% to 61.05% and the factors with higher cumulative rate were basically consistent with the actual conditions of occupational stressor, strain and coping resources. The results showed that the OSIF has good content validity and construct-related validity.To sum up, the OSIF scales was reliable, valid and could be applied to assess the occupational stress. Some items of OSIF still didn't fit in with our country's actual situation because of the difference in culture, economy and custom between China and Japan. So some items of OSIF should be revised before applying it to our country extensively.2 Occupational stressor, strain and coping resources of the female workersWith the OSIF scales, the occupational stressor, strain and coping resources of 1450 female workers employed in three areas of occupations including nurses in hospitals , female flight attendants in airline company and teachers in elementary and middle schools were measured to evaluate their occupational stress levels.On the stress level proportion of three groups, nurses and teachersshowed mainly in the medium stress level and flight attendants were mainly in the highest stress level.Among the three groups there were significant differences of the scores of the OSIF, occupational stressor questionnaire and occupational strain questionnaire whereas there was no remarkable difference of the scores of the coping resources.Results showed that age, gender, length of service, educational degree, and work types showed an effect on the scores of the OSIF, occupational stressor questionnaire and occupational strain questionnaire and coping resources questionnaire. The scores of the OSIF, occupational stressor questionnaire and occupational strain questionnaire were getting higher with aging or the length of service increasing. The stress level in shift workers is higher than that in daytime workers.There was a significantly positive correlation between stressors scores and strain scores, the correlation coefficient was 0.49 (P<0.05); but the strain scores correlated inversely with the coping resources scores, the correlation coefficient was -0.38(P<0.05).3 Abnormal menstruation at different stress levels of female workersThe rate of the abnormal menstruation state was studied with questionnaire in two kinds of occupations including female flight attendants in airline company and female teachers in elementary and middle schools.There was no significant difference of the rate of the abnormal menstruation state between two groups. But the rate of dysmenorrhea in female flight attendants group was significantly higher than that in the teachers group.The results also showed that the occurrence rate of abnormalmenstruation and corresponding symptoms were getting higher with the stress level increasing.It was suggested that some measures should be taken to reduce the occupational stress and enhance the physical and mental health and the occupational life quality of the female workers.