Coordinador:

Arturo Juárez García

President RIFAPT network

Researcher at UAEMor, México

arturojuarezg@hotmail.com

Background:

This is a project prompted from Mexico, it was motivated in the context of the 1st Forum of the Americas on Psychosocial Factors in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. The main collaborators in the project are:

PhD. Viviola Gomez Ortíz, Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia.

MS. Aldo Vera Calzaretta, Universidad de Chile, Chile.

MS. Miguel Orellano, Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Argentina.

With the support and counsel of:

PhD. Peter Schnall, Center For Social Epidemiology, USA.

Recently entering the project:

Mtro. José Jacinto Ubillus, Red de Salud RIMAC, Lima, Perú.

Other colleagues from Bolivia, Venezuela and Uruguay have expressed their interest in participating

If you are also interested in the topic or the use of JCQ (job content questionnaire) and ERI (effort Reward imbalance), then you can be a collaborator in this important project. Please contact arturojuarezg@hotmail.com for further information.

Project review:

Psychosocial Factors and Job Stress (PF-JS) in today’s globalized world present an unattended challenge and in urgent need for conceptualizing, understanding, correct assessment and research, diagnose, surveillance and of course, prevention and intervention. Fortunately, there are important developments and thanks to their international research, it is now known that PF-JS mainly affect workers’ health and performance, this has motivated recommendations on behalf of international organisms for their prevention and control (ILO, WHO, NIOSH, OSHA, etc.), an unthinkable fact some years ago. Furthermore, tangible models have been developed to allow a better understanding of those harmful factors, as well as an opportunity for epistemological sifting and inventions aimed towards medullar dimensions of psychosocial job stress. Karasek’s (1976) Job Strain or Demand/Control and Siegrist’s (2000) Effort-Reward Imbalance models stand out for their empirical evidence. It is worth mentioning that the research concerning these models has mainly been done in developed countries (US and Europe). This is why research regarding these models or psychosocial variables is necessary and urgent in Latin-American countries (common conclusion in international forums on the topic); the recognition of their validity and association with various health indicators in Latin workers is also important. Economy, context and political conditions that define working systems in Latin America allow to suppose that the prevalence of psychosocial risks may be higher to those found in developed countries, and an even worse fact, is that they are still unknown in our countries, which makes them even more dangerous for workers’ health. It is also important to consider the contextual and social difference between developed and Latin-American countries, for instance, Job Insecurity (JI) has stood out as a particularly important psychosocial variable in Latin-America and it requires a more meticulous study. (Juárez, 2004).

Due to the above, the objectives of the project are to:

1) Determine the psychometric properties of the instruments and their models: Job Content Questionnaire for Demand/Control model and Effort/Reward Questionnaire for Effort-Reward Imbalance model.

2) Identify the prevalence of job stress psychosocial factors: Job demands, control, social support, effort, reward, and the selected health indicators.

3) Identify statistical differences in the prevalence of the assessed variables amongst participating countries.

4) Determine the association between those psychosocial factors and the two health indicators: a subjective one collected using Goldberg’s General Health Questionnaire and an objective one registered with Schnall’s (2000) estimated-points protocol for blood pressure measuring.

Method (summary)

Design: The project has been originally defined as cross-sectional, observational study, which implies the use of questionnaires in a one-time period for the selected populations. Nevertheless, researchers are encouraged to aim for independent follow-up studies concerning this project.

Instruments

- JCQ, ERI and GHQ questionnaires will be semantically adapted for their use in each of the Latin-American countries, using the same number of items and respecting the original versions, which will ease future comparisons. The questionnaires will be distributed by the coordinator of the project, who has been granted the authorization for use by the respective original authors (some questionnaires have a copyright).

- Blood pressure monitors. OMRON wrist monitors are suggested given that they are authorized by several cardiology associations. The collecting of blood pressure measures requires following a specific protocol that is explained in the full version of the project. Contact arturojuarezg@hotmail.com for further information.

Sample

Even though the initial interest has been aimed towards occupations related to health and education professionals, we are open to the incorporation of any other professional group. For the moment, it is desirable to increase our database with health professional populations (physicians, nurses, etc.), this is however not compulsory. The size of the sample is open to the quantity of information collected by the collaborators.

Other important issues

- Participating researchers are suggested to incorporate other variables related to this study; these will not necessarily be asked for the full corpus but will help expand the scientific findings in the implicated countries.

- Result analyses: A full database with JCQ, ERI, GHQ and blood pressure measures will be required for each of the participating countries. The general analyses will be done by the coordinator using several multivariate statistics. Nonetheless, the particular analysis of each country will be responsibility of the participating researcher with the possible help of the coordinator.

Credits for publications

Formal collaboration agreements will be established to make sure the handling of information and credits are satisfactory to all the participants.

Possible fundings

Although each researcher is persuaded to generate own resources within their countries, the project coordinator will search for possible funds that may include:

1) Travel expenses for the research team to attend work meetings; these could be held in any Latin-American country.

2) Economical support for graduate students that write their dissertation in the project topics. These supports can be directed to encouraging their attendance to events where their thesis results can be presented. Other options are: support for attending courses that deal with the topic and exemption for joining the Network of Researchers on Psychosocial Factors at Work Association www.factorespsicosociales.com

3) Support for the purchase of blood pressure monitors.

If you live in a Latin-American country and are interested in participating in this project, do not hesitate to contact arturojuarezg@hotmail.com