Moderators of occupational pressure in female health professionals—Individual differences and coping skills

Siew Yim Loh, Kia Fatt Quek

Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia;.

DOI: 10.4236/health.2013.510224                

Abstract

Individual differences and coping skills have influential impacts on stress process by influencing the eventual outcomes of the stressors, contributing to either wellbeing, or illness and negative experiences. The aim of this paper is to explore the individual differences and coping strategies of a cohort of women with health professionals’ occupational pressure. This is a cross-sectional survey, informed by the transactional model of stress and coping framework, and carried out on women health professionals (n = 203) from the Kuala Lumpur Hospital. Multiple regressions were conducted to examine the potential moderators of stress. Women Health Professionals reported stress with six out of eight organizational sources of pressure, with relationship being a key stressor. Their individual differences (mean + SD) were characterised by low drive (7.6 + 1.9-8.2 + 2.0), low personal influence (10.8 + 2.0 to 11.7 + 2.3), moderate control (13.4 + 3.4 to 16.3 + 2.4), and high impatience behaviour (19.1 + 3.8 to 20.4 + 3.3). With Coping strategy, the Life-work-balance coping is a significant positive predictor for five out of the nine outcomes of occupational pressure [state of mind (p < 0.001), level of resilience (p = 0.01), level of confidence (p = 0.003), physical symptoms (p = 0.001) and energy level (p < 0.001)]. The findings show relationship as a key stressor, with a less favourable pattern of individual-differences and an over-reliance on lifework balance coping. Female health professionals, stressed at work, have an undesirable profile of individual difference and a coping strategies, suggestive of attempts to balance the demands of their dual work role. The increasing female into the workforce, warrants more research to inform stress management guideline to ameliorate stress amongst those vulnerable workers. Future studies to examine individual differences of these female-dominated professions across health setting are needed to better inform the pressure-at-work issues for the increasing Asian women health professionals.

Keywords

Occupational Pressure; Women; Individual Differences; Coping

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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