[Effects of job content on psychological stress in young recruits].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the effects of job content on psychological stress in young recruits.

METHODS: In October 2014, 625 young recruits enrolled in one troop of Xinjiang Military Command in 2014 were chosen as subjects by multi-stage stratified random sampling. The Chinese version of the job content questionnaire (JCQ)and the psychological stress self evaluation test (PEST)were used to investigate the subjects. The subjects were divided into two groups with scores higher and lower than the mean score of three subscales (job requirement, degree of autonomy, and social support)of JCQ to explore the effects of job content on psychological stress in young recruits. The correlation of psychological stress with three subscales of job content was evaluated using the Pearson' s correlation analysis. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the influencing factors for psychological stress.

RESULTS: The PEST score of young recruits was 49.98±9.98. Forty-five (7.68%)out of them had scores of ≥70 points and were diagnosed with high levels of psychological stress. When the subjects were grouped based on socio-demographic characteristics, a high level of psychological stress was significantly more frequent in subjects less than 20 years of age than in those not less than 20 years of age, in smoking subjects than in non-smoking subjects, and in urban residents than in rural residents (10.42% vs 5.03%, P<0.05; 10.14% vs 5.33%, P<0.05; 10.85% vs 5.88% , P <0.05). There were no significant differences in educational level or identity before recruitment between subjects with different levels of psychological stress (P>0.05). In various job content domains that had impacts on psychological stress, subjects with a low score of social support had significantly higher PEST scores than those with a high score of social support (50.96±10.35 vs 48.49±9.22, P<0.01). The PEST score was negatively correlated with the degree of autonomy and social support (r=-0.103, P<0.05; r=-0.239, P<0.05). The results of logistic regression analysis showed that job requirement and social support were influencing factors for psychological stress (OR=0.718, 95% CI= 0.718 (0.607~0.851), P<0.05; OR=1.185, 95% CI=1.185 (1.087~1.292), P<0.05).

CONCLUSION: Psychological stress of young recruits in army is not optimistic. Psychological stress is weakly negatively correlated with social support. The low scores on job requirement subscale and social support subscale may be potential protective factor and risk factor for psychological stress, respectively.