“I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.
ÂJennifer Yane
One of the things we watch for in raising our guide dog puppy named Ajax is what might cause him stress. In the last few weeks we have introduced him to “open stairs” that he seems very hesitant to climb even though our two story house has lots of stairs he handles easily each day.  Ajax also seems to be pretty stressed and anxious when he approaches a strange dog in his playful manner and they bark loudly back at him to communicate they aren’t interested in a 40 pound puppy wanting to interact.  All of use experience stressors at work and home each day but how we perceive these events determines whether they are experienced as stressful.
Our own research suggests that 40% to 60% of all employees express a moderately high level of stress on the job. Our work and non-work lives are very permeable with most of us taking work stress home and home stress to our job ((Nowack, K. (2006). Optimising Employee Resilience: Coaching to Help Individuals Modify Lifestyle. Stress News, International Journal of Stress Management, Volume 18, 9-12)). The contributors to stress are varied and is is logical that we take work stress home with us as well as import the pressures from family challenges back to the job ((Nowack, K. (2008). Coaching for Stress: StressScan. Editor: Jonathan Passmore, Psychometrics in Coaching, Association for Coaching, UK, pp. 254-274)).
The American Psychological Association (APA) in their 2008 survey of American’s perceptions of stress found that almost half of all respondents (N= 1,791) were pressed about the ability to provide for their family’s needs in the wake of the global economic recession. Women, compared to men, reported they were more stressed about money (83% versus 78%) and health problems affecting their families (70% versus 63%).
In the APA survey all respondents reported an increase in overall stress from last year and more people reported increased symptoms of stress including fatigue, anger/irritability, depression and headaches. The APA survey also suggested more adverse use of coping habits and lifestyle practices as a result of the perceived increase in work and life stress.
We were interested in seeing whether results from our own personal stress and health risk appraisal called StressScan would help to identify what professional working employees reported being stressed about and how it compares to the recent 2008 APA survey. StressScan measures 14 psychosocial scales that have been shown to be associated with diverse individual (e.g., job burnout, depression, physical health) and organizational (e.g., absenteeism) outcomes.
Stress is conceptualized as the experience of major and minor irritants, annoyances, and frustrations (hassles) of daily living over a three-month period.  This brief measure of work/life stress was based upon factor analytic research of the original Hassles scale ((AD Kanner, A, Coyne, J., Schaefer, C.; & Lazarus, R. (1981). Comparison of two modes of stress measurement: Daily hassles and uplifts. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 4, 1573-3521)). StressScan measures the extent to which respondents experience daily hassles in six distinct factor areas including: 1) Health; 2) Work; 3) Personal Finances; 4) Family; 5) Social Obligations; and 6) Environmental and World concerns (6 items).
We analyzed differences by gender across these six StressScan scales (ANOVA) using requests for free trials for this assessment over the last few years (N=149). In general, women reported significantly higher levels of stress compared to males (mean for woman = 16.48 versus mean for men = 15.35, p < .01). No other significant differences were found across gender for quality/quantity of sleep, social support network (availability, use and satisfaction) or happiness.
We found only two stress categories were rated as significantly more challenging by women compared to their male counterparts (p < .01) using a 1 to 5 scale where 1 = Never, 3 = Sometimes and 5 = Always):
Financial Stressors (mean for women 3.15/mean for men 2.72)
Family Stressors (mean for women 3.08/mean for men 2.70)
However, we found no significant differences in self-reported work, health, social or environmental stressors. In our sample, professional working women continue to report more hassles and life challenges around family issues and finances than men (note: we don’t gather marital status on our demographics but this would be useful to know in analyzing these differences). These findings support the recent APA stress survey as well as confirm that women may indeed still perceive they have two full-time jobs–one at work and the other when they leave.
I guess I will get Ajax out for a long walk with his Guide Dog bib on and see how he handles the stresses of his working life …Be well….
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[tags]StressScan, health stressors, financial stressors, stress, health, job burnout, hassles, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack[/tags]
Ken Nowack
Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)
