Testing the Vitamin Model of job stress in Dutch health care workers

Three central hypotheses of Warr's Vitamin Model concerning the relationship between job characteristics and well-being and health outcomes were tested: (1) differential effects of job characteristics on the various well-being and health outcomes; (2) predominance of curvilinear associations; and (3) moderate influence of negative and positive affectivity on these relationships. The study participants were 162 employees from a health care organization (aged 19-54 years, 95% women) who completed questionnaires on job demands and job autonomy, as well as on the outcome variables depression, anxiety, job satisfaction, and health complaints. In addition, data on short-term sickness absence were collected. A higher level of job demands was significantly associated with a lower level of well-being and self-reported health. Job autonomy showed weaker relationships with the outcome variables. The effects of job demands were still large after controlling for negative and positive affectivity, while the effects of job autonomy in most cases became non-significant. The predicted curvilinear relationship between job characteristics and outcome variables did not have an additional value over a linear model in predicting the data. It is concluded that the present data from a homogeneous sample of mostly female nurses support Warr's Vitamin Model to a limited extent.     

THE CLINICAL AND THEORETICAL IMPACT OF A CONTROLLED TRIAL OF FAMILY THERAPY IN ANOREXIA NERVOSA

The paper discusses the practical and theoretical implications of the results of a controlled treatment trial. Family therapy was compared with individual, supportive psychotherapy for the management of severe eating disorder. Family therapy was markedly more effective in achieving improvement in one of four subgroups of patients: (a): those with early onset, short duration; (b) early onset, duration more than 3 years; (c) late onset, after the age of 18 years; (d) those with bulimia nervosa. The therapies used are described, as are the changes in clinical practice arising from the study. Theoretical considerations concerning notions of family structure, the family life-cycle and symptomatic and family change are also discussed.     

LANGUAGE STRUCTURING OF RELIGIOUS AWARENESS: A LEXICOGRAPHIC APPROACH

We take a semiotic approach to studying religion in order to assess how basic English conveys the structure of the institution of religion and provides the lay public with knowledge about religious identities. Our data consist of definitions of religious identities provided by two dictionaries. The identities we consider are from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other religions. From the dictionary definitions, we created a semantic network showing how the meaning of one identity is elucidated by references to other identities. The network can be interpreted as roughly mapping the institutional layout of religion. Identities in the network partition into clusters corresponding to the major faiths, and status hierarchies of some institutional structures like abbeys are evident within faiths. A few bridging identities link different faiths, so the overall structure is loosely connected apart from a few semantic isolates. Our results suggest that basic English biases its speakers' awareness overwhelmingly toward Christian identities, provides meager knowledge regarding Judaism, and offers limited and sometimes eccentric views of other major faiths.     

Testing the Vitamin Model of job stress in Dutch health care workers

Three central hypotheses of Warr's Vitamin Model concerning the relationship between job characteristics and well-being and health outcomes were tested: (1) differential effects of job characteristics on the various well-being and health outcomes; (2) predominance of curvilinear associations; and (3) moderate influence of negative and positive affectivity on these relationships. The study participants were 162 employees from a health care organization (aged 19–54 years, 95% women) who completed questionnaires on job demands and job autonomy, as well as on the outcome variables depression, anxiety, job satisfaction, and health complaints. In addition, data on short-term sickness absence were collected. A higher level of job demands was significantly associated with a lower level of well-being and self-reported health. Job autonomy showed weaker relationships with the outcome variables. The effects of job demands were still large after controlling for negative and positive affectivity, while the effects of job autonomy in most cases became non-significant. The predicted curvilinear relationship between job characteristics and outcome variables did not have an additional value over a linear model in predicting the data. It is concluded that the present data from a homogeneous sample of mostly female nurses support Warr's Vitamin Model to a limited extent.