Job stress, social support, job satisfaction and absenteeism among offshore oil personnel

The major aim of this study was to examine how job stress in the offshore working environment may affect workers experience of strain. This study also analyses both the main and moderator effect of social support on the association between job stress and strain. The association between strain and absenteeism is also analysed. The analyses are based on a self-completion questionnaire survey among employees on offshore oil installations in the Norwegian part of the North Sea (n = 1137). The data collection was carried out in 1994. A similar study was conducted in 1990. Job stress was found to be associated with job dissatisfaction, as well as experience of strain. Social support from a supervisor had a main effect on strain. Some evidence of the moderating effects of social support were found. The employees who had been absent from work experienced most strain. It is concluded that job stress predicted job dissatisfaction and strain. In turn, strain and absenteeism were associated with each other. These results suggest that improving organizational and social factors should be the focal area in health promotion in the offshore oil industry.     

Attitudes Toward Women in Health Care Organizations: A Turkish Case Study

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine the health care employees’ attitudes toward women in health care organizations in Turkey. It was measured using a 25-item scale by Spence, Helmreich, and Stapp (1973 Spence, J. T., Helmreich, R., & Stapp, J. (1973). A short version of the Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS). Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 2(4), 219–220. doi:10.3758/BF03329252[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). The study was conducted on 541 employees: 279 males and 262 females. Structural equation model (SEM) was applied to analyze the relationship between gender, marital status, and income and attitudes toward woman. The result of this analysis showed that the relations between gender, marital status, and income and attitudes toward woman were statistically significant. All three hypotheses were statistically supported. This result indicated that employees’ marital status and (monthly) income significantly predicted their scores of attitudes toward woman in a positive direction. Besides, employees’ gender significantly predicted their scores of attitudes toward woman in an inverse direction. Future research can focus on investigating the effects of the attitudes toward women on other elements (e.g., performance, motivation, job satisfaction) or a wider sample to reach more generalized results.     

Accidents and Unpleasant Incidents: Worry in Transport and Prediction of Travel Behavior

Worry on nine different means of transport was measured in a Norwegian sample of 853 respondents. The main aim of the study was to investigate differences in worry about accidents and worry about unpleasant incidents, and how these two sorts of worry relate to various means of transport as well as transport behavior. Factor analyses of worry about accidents suggested a division between rail transport, road transport, and nonmotorized transport, whereas analyses of worry about unpleasant incidents suggested a division between transport modes where you interact with other people and "private" transport modes. Moreover, mean ratings of worry showed that respondents worried more about accidents than unpleasant incidents on private transport modes, and more about unpleasant incidents than accidents on public transport modes. Support for the distinction between worry about accidents and unpleasant incidents was also found when investigating relationships between both types of worry and behavioral adaptations: worry about accidents was more important than worry about unpleasant incidents in relation to behavioral adaptations on private means of transport, whereas the opposite was true for public means of transport. Finally, predictors of worry were investigated. The models of worry about accidents and worry about unpleasant incidents differed as to what predictors turned out significant. Knowledge about peoples' worries on different means of transport is important with regard to understanding and influencing transport and travel behavior, as well as attending to commuters' welfare.     

Priorities and determinants of priorities of Swedish social workers

Priority setting is an integrated part of social work, in Sweden as well as internationally. In this article we explore Swedish social services and how social workers make priorities and what these priorities involve. By use of regression analysis we also study what circumstances are of importance for allocative precedence and what impact different distributive principles have. One primary result is that priorities are made frequently by social workers—mostly on what cases to work with next and how much time to spend on every client. Another somewhat expected result is a manifest area bias, suggesting that respondents tend to see to the interests of their own professional domain. The principle of need proved to be the most important of the distributive principles studied, while principles of capacity to benefit and economy were more endorsed by officials working with elderly and disabled than those in other sectors.     

Eldercare policy between the state and family: Austria

Certain aspects of the Austrian system of social security and public welfare for the elderly, on the one hand, and family caregiving, on the other hand, are reviewed. In 1993, a new attendance allowance act for needy persons is being introduced in Austria. This reform includes cash payments on seven different levels according to the degree of need and is supposed to increase the opportunity of choice for the elderly. This assumption remains dubious; it should not be expected that a significant number of new informal caregivers can be recruited. Furthermore, empirical evidence shows that the elderly themselves clearly prefer the expansion of social services over paid family caregiving. There is a need for more research regarding the effects of interaction among the elderly, the family, and professional caregivers and for the promotion of an empowerment approach.