Comparing job stress and related factors between welfare organization's employees with and without physical disability in Tehran

Job stress is an interaction between working conditions and the individual characteristics of the employee. The aim of this study was to compare job stress and related factors of welfare organization employees with and without physical disability in Tehran. In this descriptive-comparative study, the statistical population included all employees of welfare centers in Tehran. The type of sampling method was convenience and the cases included all the 53 employees affected by physical disabilities and the control group included 61 people with similar characteristics and job positions, without disabilities. In order to measure the job stress severity and its influencing factors, the “Occupational Stress Scale” prepared for Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and “Factors Influencing Job Stress” questionnaire were used respectively. In this study reliability was measured by Cronbach's alpha which for “Occupational Stress Scale” and was 0.73 and “Factors Influencing Job Stress” had reliability of 0.80. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS-16 software using statistical tests K2 and independent t-test. No significant differences were found in demographic characteristics between the two groups. The job stress in employees with physical disabilities was significantly different with the employees without (P<0.05), with higher stress in the physically disabled (mean=113.7 and standard deviation=11.3) compared to non-disabled (mean=97.2 and standard deviation=11.2) (P<0.001). The importance of factors influencing job stress was also higher in the employees with disability (mean=119.2 and standard deviation=13.2) compared to non- disabled (mean=105.2 and standard deviation=12.5) (P<0.001). Job stress of employees with physical disabilities is more than the employees without physical disability and also the factors influencing the stress are different. Paying more attention to the programs designed to promote the skills of job stress management and also decreasing and/or eliminating factors related to job stress of employees with disabilities are recommended.