Humans ; Job Satisfaction ; Occupational Health ; Reward ; Stress, Psychological ; physiopathology ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Workload

BACKGROUND: In contemporary China, most parents are dual-earner couples and there is only one child in the family. We aimed to examine the associations of parents' work stress with suicidal ideation among the corresponding adolescent. We further hypothesized that low parental support experienced by adolescents may mediate the associations. METHODS: Cross-sectional data from school students and their working parents were used, with 907 families from Kunming City, China. Stress at work was measured by the effort–reward imbalance questionnaire. Perceived parental support was assessed by an item on parental empathy and their willingness to communicate with the adolescent. Suicidal ideation was considered positive if students reported thoughts about suicide every month or more frequently during the previous 6 months. Logistic regression was used to examine the associations. RESULTS: We observed that parents' work stress was positively associated with low parental support, which was in turn associated with adolescent suicidal ideation. The odds ratio for parents' work stress and adolescent suicidal ideation was 2.91 (95% confidence interval: 1.53–5.53), and this association was markedly attenuated to 2.24 (95% confidence interval: 1.15–4.36) after additional adjustment for parental support. Notably, mothers' work stress levels exerted stronger effects on children's suicidal ideation than those of fathers. CONCLUSION: Parents' work stress (particularly mother's work stress) was strongly associated with adolescent's suicidal ideation, and the association was partially mediated by low parental support. These results need to be replicated and extended in prospective investigations within and beyond China, in order to explore potential causal pathways as a basis of preventive action.
Adolescent* ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group* ; Child ; China ; Cross-Sectional Studies* ; Empathy ; Family Characteristics ; Fathers ; Humans ; Logistic Models ; Odds Ratio ; Parents* ; Prospective Studies ; Suicidal Ideation* ; Suicide

BACKGROUND: With global changes in the current state of work and employment, the role of health-adverse psychosocial work environments has received increasing attention in developed as well as in rapidly developing countries. Thus, there is a need to apply valid measurement tools for monitoring and preventive purposes. This study aims to examine the factorial structure and psychometric properties of the Persian version of the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) questionnaire, assessing one of the internationally leading concepts of stressful work. METHODS: This descriptive cross-sectional study of a random sample of 202 white collar employees in an industrial company in Iran analyzes the ERI scales by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Moreover, aspects of construct and criterion validity are tested. To this end, correlations of ERI scales with subscales of organizational injustice, a complementary work stress model, and also the correlations of ERI scales with a questionnaire assessing psychosomatic symptoms are performed. RESULTS: Internal consistency of the three ERI scales was satisfactory (Cronbach α effort: 0.76, reward: 0.79, overcommitment: 0.75). Fit indices of confirmatory factor analysis pointed to an adequate representation of the theoretical construct (e.g., adjusted goodness of fit index (AGFI): 0.73, goodness of fit index (GFI): 0.78). Negative correlations with subscales of organizational injustice supported the notion of construct validity of the ERI scales, and positive correlations of ERI scales with psychosomatic symptoms indicated preliminary criterion validity. CONCLUSION: The Persian version of the ERI questionnaire has acceptable psychometric properties and can be used as a valid instrument in research on this topic.
Cross-Sectional Studies ; Developing Countries ; Employment ; Iran ; Psychometrics* ; Reward ; Weights and Measures