OCCUPATIONAL

STRESS INDEX
Dr. A. K. Srivastava & Dr. Ashok Pratap Singh

www.prasadpsycho.com
18001039798
Published
by:
PRASAD PSYCHO CORPORATION
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New Delhi-110092 [INDIA]
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First Publication in India: 2019

Product Code: 16-0437-KT

ISBN : 978-93-84764-82-1
 INTRODUCTION

We are living in an era of growing complexities and pressures where

human constitution and capacities are being taxed severely. The stressors
relating to job have become predominant feature of modern life, exerting far
reaching effects on focal employee's behaviour and adjustments on as well
as off-the-job. This is the reason that systematic studies of stress in
organizational setting have increased dramatically over past one decade.
Currently, job stress has become a prominent work related research topic.
Job stress is generally defined in times of relationship between person and
environment. Mc Grath (1976) has noted that a stress involves an
interaction of person and environment. To define stress he said, “....... there is
potential for stress when an environmental situation is perceived as
presenting demand which threatens to exceed the person's capabilities and
resources for meeting it, under conditions where he expects a substantial
differential in the rewards and costs from meeting the demand versus not
meeting it”. Margolis and Kores (1974) defined job stress as a condition
worth interacting with worker characteristics to disrupt Psychological and
physiological homeostasis. The causal situation conditions are job stresses
and the disrupted homeostasis is job related strain.

Psychologists and management scientists have different views about

potential psychological and situational conditions or job related factors
which cause job stress. The researchers engaged in analyzing the
antecedents and consequents ofjob stress have reported different physical
and psychological conditions at work as potential occupational stressors.
(Rahn. et al., 1964; Kahn & Quinn, 1970; French & Caplan, 1972; Mc Grath,

The Occupational Stress Index purports to measure the extent of

+... Stress which employees perceive arising from various constituent and
».. Conditions of their job. However, stress researchers have developed the
., Scales which measure the stress arising exclusively from job roles (Rizzo, et al

S
 198 1) I bye POE WV
} t er-pryec t . oe
stererl tr, the,

1970; Pareek
()1) 1) ritly els Admini

ery level ope

oti in the contest of Industries or other ner
employees of ev i Inn
. So on , However 1 would Prove more suitable Fre +
od uc t io n or ga nizations. |
pr asis

level and above

employees of supervisory

Main features of the Tool

The scale consists of 46 items, each to be rated on the five-point sal-
Out of 43 items, 28 are 'true-keyed! and rest 18 are 'false keyed’ The itern<
related to almost all relevant components of job life which cause stress ir
some way or the other, such as role over-load, role ambiguity, role conflict,
group and political pressures, responsibility for persons, under
participation, powerlessness, poor peer relations, intrinsic impoverishment.
lowstatus, strenuous working conditions, and unprofitability.
The following Table gives an account of the items constituting various
subscales of the O.S. |. along with their indices of internal consistency.
Sub Scales Serial number of the Rongedk ie.
(Occupational stressors) items in the schedule |
1 R ole Overload 1,13, , 25, 36, 44, 46 30-.46
Role ambiguity 2, 14", 26, 37 .20 - .48
3,15”, 27, 38%, 45 36 - 53
Unreasonable group & A, 16, 28, 39 94-59
political pressures
Responsibility for 5,17, 29 30-.57
persons
Under participation 6*18* 30* 40* 55.73
FAP 30 44-62
[=She
eRe= Poor peer relations
Intrinsic
8* 20. 32* 41"
es
24-49

impoverishment 9,21", 33", 42 32 -.64 |

10|Lowstatus «da ba 3a B68 — |
11 Stre nuous working ; —
conditions 12, 24, 35, 43 0 -.63
nprofitability
* False-keyed items
_"~ i} —

Reliability
The reliability index ascertained by split half (add-even) method and
Cronbach's alpha-coefficient for the scale as a whole were found to be .935
s o
and .90, respectively. The reliability indices of the 12 sub-scale were als
computed through split half method. The following Table records the
obtained indices ofreliability.

Sub Scales Reliability Index |

oO Seeees eee

1 | Role Overload 684

2 Role ambiguity 554

Role conflict 696

Ooo
Bas Unreasonable group & political pressures
5 | Responsibility for persons
454
840
Under participation .630
N Powerlessness 809
Poor peer relations 549
Intrinsic impoverishment 956
0 Low status ~ 00‘O
a 1 Strenuous working conditions oe)is)

8/8/38)
:
12 Unprofitability SNOnNS

Validity
The validity of the O. S. |. was determined by computing coefficients
of correlation between the scores on O. S. |. and various measures of job
attitudes and job behaviour. The employees' scores on the O. S. |. is likely to
Positively correlate with the scores on the measures of such role related
attitudinal, motivational and personality variables which have proved
lowering or moderating the level of occupational stress. The coefficients of
belo between the scores on O. S. |. and
the measures of Job
Nvolvement (Lodhal & Kejner, 1965), Work motivation
(Srivastava, 1980),
 and Job satisfaction (Pestonjee, 1973) Were
Ego-strength (Hasan, 1970), 200), AO (N= 205) and-
found to be -.56 (N=22 5), -44 (N ‘i | 51 (N=509)
ctively. The correlation betwe ” the scores on fhe scores onthegs |

aserie measure of Job Anxiety (Srivastava, 1974) was found to be 59

(N=400).
The employee's score on O.S.I. have been found to be POSitival,
correlated with their score on the measures of Mental (ill) He alth,
standardized by Dr. O. N. Srivastava (Prof. of Psychiatry). The following table
presents the indices of mental (ill) health of high and low occupational Stress
group ofthe employees:

High Low
Sr. Symptoms of mental ill babesfeSroup Stressee
No health

Free floating anxiety | 6.17 | 3. ; :

Obsessive traits &
A
NO syimotonis et 3.09 7.69 3.24

[6|
Hitret
ss—|32
Scoring
| Since the questionnaire consists of both true-keye
d and false-keyed
items two different patterns of scor
ing have to be adopted for two
items. The follow types of
ing table Provides guide line to sco
two categories of items:
re the responses givento
 —*

tC

Scores
Categories of response — |

True-keyed Items | False keyed Items

Never / Strongly disagree 1

Seldom / Disagree 9 |

Sometimes / Undecided 3

Norms
Norms have been prepared for the scores on Occupational Stress
Index as a whole as well as for its twelve sub-scales separately on a
representative sample of 700 employees of different cadres operating in
various production and non-production organizations. The distribution of
scores on the O..S. |.was found to be slightly skewed in negative direction. To
prepare the norms three methods were adopted i.e., normal distribution,
percentile point and division of upper and lower halves.

The scores were divided into three categories. i.e. high, moderate
and low, following the principles of normal probability distribution.
The
scores falling above + 10, between +1owere categorized, respectively
as to
indicate high moderate and low levels of occupational
stress.
 The following Table provid
the
esnor ms forthe rawscores:

Norms Table 1 represents the levels of occupati

along with the ite onal stress
m numbers the sample wil
l fall in.
f Levelof Occupational Stress
Sub-Scales Low —«(| ~——sModerate High
(Below - 1s) (Betweent 16) (Above+ig)
i |
om 15-22 23-30.
mot saa 347 teas
Nf 49 toa 520
A ES
pv | 49 0 a0

Kf
a9 08 ta20
XII 2-4
13-20
adi
whole

The scores have been categorized as to indicate high, moderate and

low levels of Occupational stress also on the basis of its percentile values.
The scores below P25, between P26 and P75 and above P75 were taken as
to indicate low, moderate and high levels of occupational stress
respectively.
The following Table records the prepared norms.
 Norms Table 2 represents the percentile value of the occupational
will fall in.
stress along with the item numbers the sample

Level of Occupational Stress |

|
aad Moderate | High P75) |

23-30
Above
(Pa. & P35)

18-22
(P25 & below)

6-17 | 1-14. | 15-20

whole

id ed int o up pe r an d lo wer halves on the basis

The scores were also div w
scores. [he score belo
of the median point of the distribution of the str ess low
and abo ve med ian wer e cate gori zed, res pe ctively as to indicate
median
ovides the
and high levels of occupati onal stress. The following ta ble pr
norms onthiscriterion

1]
NANTES HAE S TEMPERS OE SE ea SS ewaer
e FONEhs Nha 'VES ON the basi
c Oft
TRADOT PEA
OFT
She SITESS or es OF TH E Sa mp les will fall in, *
Level ofOccupational Stress =
Suib-Scalies High low
(Above Median) (Betow Median)
— 20+ 30
ff. 3 > rF.o*™ 43.99
eNO

a
= 16-25
‘ a 13-20
‘ pa 11~15
aw £-12 on13-20
‘ee SS aig 40-45
V" +-** 12-20
oe 284 12-20
x >-? 10-415
xX 4-42 13-20
Xe: 2-3 7-10

—— £6-429 140-230

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