A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY TO ASSESS THE FACTORS INFLUENCING THE JOB STRESS AMONG THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT NURSES AT ERODE, TAMIL NADU, INDIA

ABSTRACT When the working system is in demand of more efficiency, individual resource stress is felt. Perception of stress occurs when there is a mismatch between the expectations and accomplishment. Because of workload and working environment seen in hospitals, health professionals frequently suffer from stress. In India prevalence of occupational stress amongst nurses has been estimated to be 87.4%. The present study was planned for assessing factors affecting occupational stress among Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurses. So the Nurse manager and Chief of the hospital should take initiatives to overcome this problem and help them reduce the job stress by providing commensurate workload according to their abilities and lend proper recognition to their efforts and skills, and motivate them to contribute their thoughts to take decisions in their work, assign them responsibilities to do their work and help them improve their relations with their co-workers. Key Words: Job Stress, Intensive care unit, Workload.

The correlation between workers’ working pressure and physical and mental health analyzed by the job demand-resource stress model

BACKGROUND: Under the background of the information society, teachers’ pressure from work and life is increasing. Meanwhile, the working pressure has a potential inevitable connection with the physical and mental health of teachers. OBJECTIVE: To analyze the correlation between working pressure of workers and mental health status, expand the application of the job demand-resource stress (JD-RS) model in the adjustment of working characteristic pressure, and achieve the coordinated development between working pressure and mental health. METHODS: The occupation of the teacher is taken as the research object. First, the pressure source questionnaire and Symptom Check List 90 (SCL-90) are chosen to measure the working pressure and mental health. Also, the reliability and validity of the pressure source questionnaire are tested. Second, the gender, duty, teaching age, and workload of teachers are chosen as the foundation for comparing and analyzing the impact of various dimensions and project factors on teachers’ working pressure and mental health. Finally, based on the method of univariate linear regression analysis, the correlation between teachers’ working pressure and mental health is analyzed and characterized. RESULTS: The measurement tool based on the pressure source questionnaire has good performance reliability and validity. The five dimensions of Cronbach’s coefficients are all greater than 0.8, and the indicators of fitting all meet psychometrics requirements. Significance analysis shows that different genders, duties, teaching ages, and workloads have different levels of significant influence on teachers’ working pressure and mental health. Linear regression analysis shows that teachers’ working pressure has a significant impact on their physical and mental health, which has a predictive effect. Teachers who bear high-intensity pressure have psychological problems. CONCLUSIONS: The research based on the JD-RS model has a positive role in promoting the balanced and coordinated development of working pressure and the physical and mental health of employed workers.

Climate Variability, Drought, and the Belief that High Gods Are Associated with Weather in Nonindustrial Societies

All societies have religious beliefs, but societies vary widely in the number and type of gods in which they believe as well as their ideas about what the gods do. In many societies, a god is thought to be responsible for weather events. In some of those societies, a god is thought to cause harm with weather and/or can choose to help, such as by bringing needed rain. In other societies, gods are not thought to be involved with weather. Using a worldwide, largely nonindustrial sample of 46 societies with high gods, this research explores whether certain climate patterns predict the belief that high gods are involved with weather. Our major expectation, largely supported, was that such beliefs would most likely be found in drier climates. Cold extremes and hot extremes have little or no relationship to the beliefs that gods are associated with weather. Since previous research by Skoggard et al. showed that greater resource stress predicted the association of high gods with weather, we also tested mediation path models to help us evaluate whether resource stress might be the mediator explaining the significant associations between drier climates and high god beliefs. The climate variables, particularly those pertaining to dryness, continue to have robust relationships to god beliefs when controlling on resource stress; at best, resource stress has only a partial mediating effect. We speculate that drought causes humans more anxiety than floods, which may result in the greater need to believe supernatural beings are not only responsible for weather but can help humans in times of need.

PTSD Symptoms, Daily Subjective Age, and Psychological Distress in Community-Dwelling Older Adults

This study had three goals: (1) to address daily links between subjective age and the three psychological distress facets (depression/anxiety/somatization); (2) to examine whether such links would be stronger under higher posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) levels; (3) to assess which PTSD cluster is most relevant. The sample (168 community-dwelling-older-adults, mean age = 73.48, 46% female) completed an online, web-based questionnaire across 14 consecutive days. Results show that on the days participants felt older, they reported higher psychological distress, which was further exacerbated by higher PTSD levels. The PTSD cluster of intrusive thoughts was most relevant. The discussion addresses the “double-burden” view, two theories of subjective age (resource/stress vs. ageism), and finally interventions for daily psychological distress reduction amongst older adults.

Water-resource stress on the Spanish Costa del Sol: policy requirements to improve supply security

The Costa del Sol, in common with many Mediterranean (and similar) coastal areas, is having to face increasing water-resource stress as a result of global warming and land-use change, coupled with extremely high peak water demand resulting from large tourist numbers and summer climatic factors. An assessment is presented of current water-supply provision, possible measures to enhance the resilience of the water-supply system (focusing on improved use of groundwater storage), and the institutional challenges confronting their implementation.

A Multiscalar Consideration of the Athabascan Migration

Genetic and linguistic evidence suggests that, after living in the Subarctic for thousands of years, Northern Athabascans began migrating to the American Southwest around 1,000 years ago. Anthropologists have proposed that this partial out-migration and several associated in situ behavioral changes were the result of a massive volcanic eruption that decimated regional caribou herds. However, regional populations appear to increase around the time of these changes, a demographic shift that may have led to increased territoriality, resource stress, and specialization. Building on existing syntheses of cultural dynamics in the region, analyses of excavated materials, and landscape data from Alaska and Yukon, this research shows that the Athabascan transition represented a gradual shift toward resource specialization in both salmon and caribou with an overall increase in diet breadth, indicating a behavioral transition that is more consistent with gradual demographic change. Further, this behavioral shift was already in motion at the time of the volcanic eruption circa 1150 cal BP and suggests that the ultimate migration from the area was the result of demographic pressures. In sum, this research elaborates on the complex dynamics of resilience and adaptation in hunter-gatherer groups and provides a testable model for explaining past migrations.