Study On The Occupational Stress Of The Oilfield Workers And Its Relative Factors

Objective The working condition of oil production in China has improved greatly with the modernization of the production equipment and the production technology. However, the imbalance between the work requirement and the specialty knowledge and the technique skills of the workers tends to be worse with the change of the mode of work. Moreover, because of the characteristics of the oil industries, the working condition of the wild oilfield is very bad and there is little leisure and entertainment and the mutual dependence of human relations, which makes the workers in the wild oilfield suffering the severe occupational stress. The objectives of our study are to understand the occupational stress of the workers working in the wild oilfield, to compare the scorings of the occupational stress between two subfactors of the work psychological control locus and analyze the relationships of work psychological control locus to the occupational stress factors and other variables such as individual characteristics, the stress response and the relieving factors, and analyze the job satisfaction and the depression symptoms of workers in the oilfield as well as their influential factors.Methods The cluster sampling method was used for selecting 582 workers in an oil mining area of Henan Zhongyuan Oilfields as the subjects in 2005. The effective 423 copies of questionnaire were colleted and the effective sample rate was 72.69%. The questionnaire investigation of the oil field workers was performed with the occupational stress measurement instrument. The occupational stress measurement instrument comprised three scales: the epidemiological selfrating depression scale, the occupational stress survey scale and the work psychological control locus scale. The database was managed with Excel and analyzed statically with the SPSS 11.0. The measurement data was statically analyzed with t test or F test. The x~2 test was used for significance test of the difference of the depression detection rate of the oilfield workers. Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used to analyze the correlation between the scorings and the stress related factors. The multiple stepwise regression analysis was used to predict the influence of stress related variables on the depression symptoms, the job satisfaction and the work psychological control locus. The independent variable entered the equation when P<0.05.Results (1) The scoring of task consistency in the older oilfield worker group was higher than that in the younger worker group while the scoring of the role ambiguity in the younger oilfield worker group was higher than that in the older worker group. The job satisfaction, the tolerance, the work psychological control locus and the loyalty to the organization in the <30 years old group was lower that those in the≥30 years old group. (2) The scoring of the liability for the task and family support in the group of the oil workers of <10 years of service was lower than that in the group of≥10 years of service. (3) The scorings of work load, the liability for people, the liability for the task, the position promotion and the participation of decision-making of male workers were higher than those of the female workers while the boss support for the male workers was lower than for the female workers. (4) The scorings of the role ambiguity and the job expectation uncertainty in the workers with the stronger external control were higher than those in the workers with the stronger internal control while their scoring of task consistency was lower than that in the workers with the stronger internal control. The scorings of the participation opportunity, the work independence, the work challenge in the workers with the stronger external control were lower than those in the group of workers with the stronger internal control. The scorings of the job satisfaction, the psychological health and the emotion balance in the stronger internal control group were higher than those in the stronger external control group, but the scoring of the depression in the stronger internal group was lower than that in the stronger external control group, which indicated that the workers with the stronger internal control was more satisfied with their jobs and had better condition of physical and psychological health. The workers with the stronger external control experienced more stress factors than the workers with the stronger internal control, were more susceptible to the stress factors and had stronger stress response. (5) 87 workers had no depression symptoms (Scoring≤15), accounting for 20.57%. 60 workers possibly had the depression symptoms (Scoring between 16 and 19), accounting for 14.18%. 276 workers had depression symptoms (Scoring≥20), accounting for 65.25%. The scorings of the role conflict, the role ambiguity, the job expectation, the intra-group conflict and inter-group conflict in the workers with the depression symptoms were significantly higher than those in the workers without the depression symptoms while their scorings of the work independence, the task consistency and the education sufficiency were significantly lower than those in the workers without the depression symptoms, which suggested that the workers with the depression symptoms perceived more occupational stress factors than the workers without or possibly with the depression symptoms.Conclusion The psychological problems are common in the oilfield workers. The problems of the psychological health and the occupational stress will be worse in the occupational population of China with the transformation of the society, the acceleration of the rhythms of the life and work, the change of the mode of production and the management system as well as the fiercer competition. Therefore, the professionals in the occupational hygiene should reinforce the research on the problems of psychological health and occupational stress and contribute to the protection of the psychosomatic health of workers.