A Study on the Stress and the Health Status of Newspaper Employees

신문사 근로자들의 스트레스와 건강상태에 관한 연구

This study was designed to assess the relationship between occupational stress and health status in a study group of 197 workers employed in four newspaper publishing companies, using a self-adminstrative questionnaire. The types of occupation of them were reporters(79), clerical workers(54), and engineers (64). The studies on workers' health have been focused mainly on the physical, chemical, and biological diseases in our country. Therefore, the study of mental health, especially of occupational stress, is to be carried out. I consider stress as a factor having an effect on the health status of the newspaper employees, who have been well known to have high stress due to time pressures. I expect that this research will be helpful not only for understanding of health status by occupation, but also for making clear the issues that have been raised continuously from the previous researches. The results of this study are as follows; 1. The mean values of stress by occupation were statistically significant; the reporters had the highest stress symptom scores, and the engineers had the lowest levels of stress. The mean values of stress symptoms were higher in the workers who had long working hours. 2. The health status by occupation showed significant differences in gastrointestinal systems and in depression. The clerical workers were healthier than the engineers in gastrointestinal systems, and the reporters were more depressed than the engineers in depression. 3. The health status by the general characteristics, there was a statistical significance as for a gender, marital status, and absenteeism in the gastrointestinal systems. The men, the married, and the workers who had not been absent were more healthy. Only absenteeism had an effect on the problems in optical-dermal systems and in oro-fecal systems. Gender, marital status, absenteeism, and working hours were related with health status : the men. the married, the workers who had not been absent, and the workers who had longer working hours were more healthy. In mental stability, gender had a significant effect : the men were more healthy than the women. In general condition, the men, the older, the married, and the workers who had not been absent were more healthy. 4. Stress level had an effect on the health status in the respiratory systems, optical-dermal systems, oro-fecal system, depression, mental stability, general condition, and health condition. The workers who perceived more stress had more problems in their health status. 5. In the results of the multiple regression analyses, age in the respiratory systems, absenteeism in the optical-dermal systems, occupation and absenteeism in the gastrointestinal systems and in the oro-fecal systems, gender in depression and in mental stability, gender, age, absenteeism, and working hours in the general condition, absenteeism in the health condition had an effect on the health status of the workers.