Job stress and occupational status in a French cohort.

Background: The goal of this study was to examine a large, varied occupational French cohort for possible relationships between various dimensions of occupational stress, on the one hand, and the occupational status and socio-demographic characteristics of workers on the other.

Methods: Data was taken from the first, cross-sectional phase of the VISAT study (aging, health, and work), which took place in 1996. Participants were randomly drawn from the patient lists of about one hundred occupational physicians in three regions of southern France. The current study concerned 2,768 wage earners born in 1944, 1954, or 1964. The material consisted of 59 questions aimed at assessing a broad set of working conditions, some of which were proxy measures of the dimensions described in the Karasek and Siegrist models.

Results: From a principal component analysis, three main factors were extracted that accounted for 40% of the total variance. The first factor (a=0.79) included items that referred to the decision latitude in the Karasek model and items that referred to the reward dimension in the Siegrist model. The second factor (a=0.77) was made up of items tapping physical stressors, while the third factor (a=0.71) pooled items that corresponded fairly well to psychological demands in the Karasek model. Highly significant relationships (p<10(-4)) were found between the mean factor scores and both occupational status and educational level, with a lower occupational status and educational level being associated with greater lack of job control and rewards, higher physical stress, but lower psychological demands. Less job control and fewer rewards were also found to be greater in older workers (p<10(-3)) and females (p<10(-4)).

Conclusion: Our results thus confirm the existence of a strong association, in a French cohort, between occupational status and dimensions of job stress known to be associated with adverse health outcomes.