Yucel,

I strongly advise you to read chapter 1 of Fletcher's book "Work Stress,
Disease, and Life Expectancy". While the book is now quite old (it came out
about 1991 and may not be in print anymore but you should be able to get it
from a national library collection ), it contains a good examination of all
models of stress. You will see that Fletcher has a good grip on theoretical
matters and thinks more widely than Karasek's model.

It is important that you consider two aspects (and therefore two models) of
the job. One aspect is the demands supports and constraints inherent in the
job. The other is the degree of fit between the individual and the job.
Both pick up on stressful aspects of work. David MacPherson and I developed
a questionnaire originally for public sector workers which, by looking at
both aspects, was able to pick up stressors that may not have been obvious.
For example in a study of one public sector body, we found that some
managers considered that certain of their work demands, etc. were not
excessive. Despite this we found a gap between how they rated those
aspects in the job and what they sought for themselves. This was
significantly associated with the degree of mental strain.


You need also to consider that there may be limitations to the universality
of the models. For example Pearson and Chong (1997) found that among a
group of nurses in Malaysia, autonomy was not such a big issue. In relation
to this, MacPherson and I found indications (I would put it no stronger
since there were not not many and therefore not enough numbers to test this
significantly) that, for those who did not want want much autonomy, too much
autonomy might be linked to mental strain.

One last word of advice: adapt the detail of any model to the organization
into which you are enquiring. Standard questionnaires can make it difficult
to give practical feedback to the organzation.

Good luck with your study.

Kevin






-----Original Message-----
From: yucel demiral [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 22 May 2001 6:20 pm
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject:


I am a PhD student in Occ. Health. I am interested work related stress. As
far as know Karasek's job strain model is the most used model in the area. I
am wondering if Karasek's job content questionnaire is unique or there are
several questionnaire which based on same model. If so which one is usefull
for field studies?
yucel demiral
dokuz eylul univ. school of med.
dept. of public health