Identifying Job Stressors in an Iranian Industrial Company and Their Relationships with Employees Mental Health and Job Satisfaction

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to explore employees' job stressors and investigating the relationships of these stressors with job satisfaction and mental health in an Iranian industrial company. Participants were 300 employees of a public organization who were selected randomly and were surveyed using interview and questionnaire. Three questionnaires were used to collect data. Mental health was assessed using the Symptom Checklist (SCL-25)(Derogatis et al., 1974), job satisfaction by five-item version of Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (Brayfield and Rothe, 1951) and Job Stressors Scale developed by authors. Items about job stressors were generated using interview with 30 employees. Then these items in the form of a questionnaire were answered by 270 employees. Principal components analysis using varimax rotation and eigenvalues over 3 on 124 items about job stressors yielded a four-factor solution of improper management, unfair procedures and treatments, organizational constraints, and insufficient payments that jointly accounted for 41.8 percent of the total variance. Cronbach's alphas for total factors was 0.97 indicating good internal consistency. Pearson Correlation analyses revealed that these factors have positive correlation with employees' mental health and negative correlation with job satisfaction. Finally, results were discussed based on mental health and organizational theories.