A longitudinal study about some protective dimensions against psychological distress in a population of hospital workers

OBJECTIVES: the aim of this research is to investigate the role of some protective dimensions, as ‘salutogenic factors’, on psychological well-being. We focus on the relationship between, on one hand, the dimension of sense of coherence SOC (Antonovsky, 1988) - and general self-efficacy GSE (Schwarzer, 1992) – and, on the other hand, psychological distress both in terms of perceived distress and in terms of risk of occupational distress. METHODS: the sample is composed of 300 hospital workers who attended a training program on human development. Data collection is performed in three steps: pre-test (before the beginning of the training program), post-test (at the end of the training program i.e. one month from the pre-test) and a follow-up (six months from the pre-test). The instrument used is a structured questionnaire composed of the following scales: the Sense of Coherence Questionnaire (Antonovsky, 1993), the General Self-efficacy Scale (Schwarzer et al.1995), the General Health Questionnaire (12 items) (Politi et al., 1994), and the Job Content Questionnaire (36 items) (Ferrario et al., 2003). RESULTS: The confront between pre-test and post-test show the existence of significant correlations between on the one hand SOC and GSE and, on the other hand perceived distress (GHQ). This correlation is in the direction of confirming the protective role of SOC and GSE on the level of perceived distress. On the contrary we haven’t found any significant correlation with results from JCQ. CONCLUSIONS: From a theoretical point of view results obtained at the first step of this longitudinal study allow us to specify the role played by some dimensions that might be at the core of the stress process; from an applicational point of view this results could be translated in future intervention on stress managing and stress prevention