Social support for stress prevention in hospital settings

Abstract

Aims: The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of social support, interacting with work stressors, on psychological stress prevention in a public hospital, based on Karasek's demand-control-support (DCS) model. Methods: A self-administered survey was conducted with 240 employees of a public hospital in the south-east of the United States. The survey asked for demographic information, details on job demands and job control as work stressors, social support, and depressive symptoms as the representative psychological stress symptoms. Results: Social support was detected as a primary interpersonal positive factor buffering depressive symptoms. Social support was also related to job control and depressive symptoms in the simple correlation. Only the main effect model with general characteristics was significantly accepted in hierarchical regression analysis (p=.04). High social support was associated with low depressive symptom scores, which means that social support had a positive association with health care employees' mental well being. However, any two-way or three-way interaction model was not accepted. The main effect part of the demand-control-support model was supported; however, interactions between demands, control, and support failed to be supported.