Setlhakgoe, Moyagabo Reginald2020-03-112020-03-112018-11-06Setlhakgoe, Moyagabo Reginald (2018) Occupational stress in an information and communication technology company in South Africa, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, <http://hdl.handle.net/10539/29117>https://hdl.handle.net/10539/29117research report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Medicine in Occupational Medicine, 2018Background Occupational stress is a major concern globally as it results in significant negative economic and health effects. This study is aimed to measure the prevalence of occupational stress and identify workplace risk factors that are related to occupational stress among junior and middle management employees in an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) company in South Africa. Methods This was a cross-sectional descriptive and analytical study. Primary data were collected using the medium size version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ II) between August 2016 and December 2016. The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire was used for this study because it had been validated for the South African context and also comes with reference values which can be used to interpret the study findings relative to the normative values. The intended sample size for the study was 230, stratified into men (n=154) and women (n=76). Prevalence of occupational stress was measured for both men and women, and regression models were applied to estimate associations between exposure variables namely stress, burnout, sleeping troubles and self-rated health and outcome variables. Results The overall study response rate was 64.8%. The response rate for men was 52.5% and for women was 89.5%. The study sample had a mean value of 45.29 (SD25.03) for stress, 50 (SD30.1) for burnout and 37.5 (SD32.4) for sleeping troubles. These study sample means were higher than the respective reference mean values of 26.7 (SD17.7), 34.1 (SD 18.2) and 21.3 (SD 19.0). Self-rated health had a study sample mean of 59.53 (SD 26.99), which was lower than the reference value of 66.0 (SD 20.9). These differences between the study sample’s mean values for stress, burnout, sleeping troubles and self-rated health and reference means were statistically significant with p- values of < 0.001 for stress and sleeping troubles, p=0.001 for burnout, and p=0.003 for self-rated health. There were no statistically significant differences (p >0.05) found between the mean values for stress, burnout, sleeping troubles and self-rated health for men and women. Work- family conflict was the most common significant (p<0.05) harmful risk factor for stress (men: OR 15.06, 95% CI: 4.64 - 48.81; women: OR 6.59, 95% CI: 1.73 - 25.09), burnout (men: OR 11.86, 95%CI: 3.50-40.22; women: OR 11.90, 95%CI: 2.80-50.62), sleeping troubles (men OR 23.11,95%CI: 4.66-114.66) and self-rated health (men OR 16.00, 95%CI: 1.49-171.48; women OR 10.47, 95%CI: 2.12-51.69) among both men and women. Conclusion The study sample results demonstrated a higher prevalence of occupational stress among study participants. This was reflected by higher levels of stress, burnout and sleeping troubles, and lower levels of self-rated health. These factors are regarded by COPSOQ as indicators of health and wellbeing and it can therefore be inferred that occupational stress existed amongst the study participants. There were no statistically significant differences in the prevalence of occupational stress between men and women. Family-work conflict was the main risk factor associated with occupational stress for both men and women, while the presence of interpersonal relations and leadership factors (e.g. social community at work and social support from supervisors) were found to be negatively associated with occupational stress, especially among women. Based on the response rate, the findings of this study must be generalised to the whole workforce with caution particularly for men as this stratum had a lower response rate. Further research into the factors of work-family conflict is recommended, and occupational stress interventions should be implemented to address the identified risk factors in order to manage the level of occupational stress for this study group.Online resource (78 leaves)enStressStress (Psychology)Employees--Counseling ofThesis