Work shift, occupational status, and the perception of job prestige.
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A small percentage of low back pain sufferers are resistant to the various types of treatment tried and the problem becomes chronic. It is for this severely incapacitated group, threatened by socio-occupational misfortune, that we created: the School for Chronic Low Back Pain Sufferers. One hundred and five patients in whom treatment had failed were included after insurance programmes had agreed to provide cover. The system is of a multidisciplinary nature with hospitalisation for 5 days. The fate of 93 of these patients is known with a mean follow-up of 1 year. Quantified initial evaluation on an obstacle course confirmed that even severe low back pain sufferers were unaware of the basic rules for protection of the spine (mean score of 14/50 on admission). Socio-occupational fate analysed on the basis of a questionnaire showed: a high satisfaction index (90%) regardless of the subsequent outcome, and a correlation between follow-up time after the programme and the decrease in painful attacks (p less than 0.03, r = 0.23) or consumption of medications (p less than 0.01, r = 0.29). The relative simplicity of the system proposed, the situation of therapeutic impasse in which the patients for whom it is intended find themselves, the short time required and the results obtained confirm the importance of this multidisciplinary management approach being able to best envisage the possibilities of rehabilitation of the chronic low back pain sufferer, in particular when there are repeated periods off work.
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OBJECTIVES: To revise and update the New Zealand Socio-economic Index (NZSEI) in the light of methodological issues in its construction, and to develop an imputation method for use where occupational information is not available. METHODS: Data were drawn from the following New Zealand national surveys: 1996 Population Census; 1996/97 and 1997/98 Household Economic Surveys; 1996/97 Household Health Survey. Three sets of statistical analyses were applied: alternating least squares to generate socio-economic scores; cluster and discriminant function analyses to identify cut-points; and regression and logistic regression to develop and test imputation methods. RESULTS: Socio-economic scores for the full-time workforce in 1996 showed a different distribution, but much the same occupational ordering, as in 1991. The introduction of part-time workers and income adjustment multipliers for self-employed workers significantly affected scores for management and agricultural titles. The application of cluster and discriminant function analyses generated six groupings that were relatively distinct occupationally. An imputation method based on an averaging of scores within age/qualification categories was found to achieve acceptable results. CONCLUSIONS: Methodological improvements in the construction of the NZSEI have enhanced its empirical robustness, while a simple imputation technique has widened the potential application of the scale.
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In 1985, 517 of the 2,486 thalidomide-affected Germans were interviewed by mail questionnaire concerning their educational and vocational situation. 250 usable returns were received, and the sample was found to correspond to the overall thalidomide-affected population in terms of age, sex, and residence, with the exception however of above-average social status and educational levels. 49.4% of the interviewees were gainfully employed, 23.7% students; 17.2% however were unemployed, undergoing retraining, or working in a workshop for the disabled. Contrasted to the German population as a whole, our sample included more university graduates and workers in service sector occupations, and fewer in the crafts or in clerical occupations. Women tended more towards social occupations, men more towards technical ones. On account of their disablement, many of our interviewees were inclined to accept white-collar employment, because their desired vocational objectives had been inaccessible to them due to purely technical difficulties or problems related to rejection by others. 80% nonetheless declared themselves content with their situation, only those in a workshop for the disabled were less satisfied on an average. Contentness was found to be linked more with job satisfaction than with the extent of disablement. About one third of our sample lived with their parents, only four in residential accommodation. More than 75% could be considered independent and needing no outside assistance, with the same share holding a driver's licence. In 90%, the majority of private or occupational contacts, or even all of them, were maintained with nondisabled people. More than 80% considered themselves financially and socially equal to their fellow workers.
Five hundred and twenty-two African and Indian patients were studied, including 206 with duodenal ulcers, 25 with irritable colon, 51 with oesophagitis, 31 with pancreatitis, 14 with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease, 71 miscellaneous gastrointestinal diagnoses and 124 controls. The mean ages were similar in each group. Every patient underwent endoscopy and a detailed psychosocial questionnaire was applied. Comparison of occupations of patients and their patients was investigated on 3 scales, for Status/Prestige (9 levels), Responsibility (5 levels) and Control over Others (10 levels). Significantly more patients with duodenal ulcers were in the lowest group in terms of occupational authority compared to other diagnoses and controls. Similar number of all groups had been urban for their entire life. Stress was present in the 10 days preceding an attack in significantly more Indian males with duodenal ulcers compared to controls. Upward shifts in prestige had not occurred in African male patients with duodenal ulcers when compared to their parents but had occurred among Indian men. More duodenal ulcer patients were in the very lowest occupational authority category compared to other groups. It may thus not be occupational prestige as such that is important, but factors associated with it, such as lack of control over others and, among Indian men, stresses associated with social disruption following upon occupation mobility.
PURPOSE: This study is based of the documentation of drastic changes in the vocational life of chronically schizophrenic individuals in the New German Länder. With the political and economic transition since 1989, the employment rate of those suffering from chronic schizophrenia dropped from 50% to 7%. Currently most of them receive a disability pension. METHOD: Using a qualitative study design, we addressed the question as to what extent the disability pension can substitute for occupation of those in question. 45 chronically schizophrenic patients who are currently in outpatient treatment were interviewed to understand the role of work and disability pension in their lives. RESULTS: Positive and negative aspects of work and disability pension and their interaction as seen by the participants in our study are described. In a life of discontinuity disability pension offers a security which most of our interviewees would not like to give up. Other needs, however, especially the need for social integration, are not met by disability pension. A part-time job beyond sheltered facilities would offer them the possibility to benefit from the positive psycho-social function of work without challenging their security. Implications for vocational rehabilitation are discussed.
The objective of this study was to determine the factors associated with central airway versus peripheral bronchial location of lung cancer. All patients diagnosed with lung cancer from 1997 through 2000 in the Respiratory Disease Department of Rouen University Hospital were prospectively interviewed about their smoking and occupational history using a standardized questionnaire. All patients underwent white-light bronchial endoscopy using a 4.5 mm flexible endoscope. Tumors were classified as central when they were accessible and visible using this technique. Out of 217 cases of lung cancer included in this study, 155 (71%) were central. Histological type of lung cancer was strongly associated with bronchial location as central location was observed in 48, 82 and 92% of Adenocarcinoma (AC), Squamous Cell (SqC), and Small Cell Carcinoma (SCC), respectively (P<0.0001). Among non asbestos-exposed patients, location varied little with smoking status, with central location frequency ranging from 74 to 80%. In contrast, lung cancer was recorded central in 41% of long-term (> or =10 years) ex-smokers, 67% of short-term (<10 years) ex-smokers and 75% of current smokers (P=0.04) among patients exposed to asbestos, suggesting an interaction between duration of smoking cessation and occupational asbestos exposure with respect to lung cancer location. These findings were confirmed after adjustment for sex, age and histologic type in multivariate analysis. These results suggest that individually-tailored multimodality screening strategies relying on various combinations of low-dose CT scan, sputum analysis and fluorescence endoscopy according to each patient's profile may be more effective than standard strategies based on a single approach for all patients.
Data from the General Household Survey (GHS) for the period 1984-1988 and data from the RUHBC-CATI (Research Unit in Health and Behavioural Change - Computer Assisted Telephone Interview) survey for the period 1988 to 1991 are pooled to study changes in the cigarette smoking prevalence in Scotland. It is concluded that the Scottish smoking prevalence shows a slight downward trend for males and a slight upward trend for females. There is some evidence for an earlier decrease in smoking prevalence related to a lower smoking uptake among younger generations, however, the current pattern of smoking among the youngest age group shows an increase. The reported difference in smoking prevalence between those in manual and non-manual occupations seems to be increasing among females and decreasing among males.
Under the German social security system, medical benefits and services fall under the health insurance system, while vocational ones are the responsibility of the employment offices. In seamless transition cases, health funds almost exclusively rely on the relevant provisions of Book three--employment promotion--of the Social Code. Notwithstanding, sickness benefits frequently extend over the maximum period possible, i.e., 18 months, although the presence of disablement has been confirmed much earlier, and transition into unemployment certainly is no perspective either. Case Managements targeted at keeping disabled persons in employment have now been set up in several Bavarian employment offices. In close cooperation with the health funds' medical services, as well as in a number of other instances, they undertake early interventions to maintain employment, thus seeking to stem the traditional further course of disabled people still employed into the long waiting lines faced with at the rehabilitation agencies, or into unemployment and subsequent costly occupational reorientation, with continued joblessness awaiting them afterwards. The Case Management approach set out and analyzed in this article is intended as a model to be taken up elsewhere, having proven its benefit for people with disabilities while being cost-effective from an overall economic perspective due to its preventing the need to grant unemployment benefits and costly retraining. Guided by rehabilitation counsellors, the Case Managements are directed at rehabilitees and companies alike, and may take action through technical work aids, integration allowances, or skills adjustment programmes. For speedier, focussed implementation of the services offered, they "purchase" support and back-up from experienced agencies in the field, drawing on so-called "free" funding resources available under book three of the Social Code. Very good results using the model outlined have already been reported by the Nuremberg, Traunstein and Würzburg employment offices.
According to a study in two clinics in the region of "Oberfranken" (1997) employment or unemployment has a different effect on the development of the mental illness: According to therapist inside opinion women suffered more from paid employment, men, however, from unemployment. In comparisons between the different diagnosis groups comparatively unfavourable effects of unemployment on the development of the illness of, addicted people became evident, negative effects of paid employment, however, were particularly found with patients suffering from F4 disorders (ICD-10).
Interviewers using a questionnaire carried out a home survey among 627 retired persons (62.7% of the sample) in the greater Paris area for the purpose of exploring relationships between disablement (impairments, disabilities, and handicaps) and socio-professional status. The subjects were randomly selected from a pension fund roll. Among men, manual laborers had higher rates of disablement than did white-collar employees and executives. Among women, laborers, office workers and those in the services had similar disablement rates, while rates among executive women were lower. Overall, women had higher rates than men. But no relationship between age and disablement was observed. The examination of disablement indicates that socioeconomic differences--earlier shown to exist with regard to mortality and morbidity--also have their effect in retirement.
Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and lower socio-professional status have in common a series of risk factors for ill health such as sedentary lifestyle, weight excess, heavy alcohol and tobacco consumption. We hypothesised that SDB will be more prevalent in lower socio-professional groups. A total of 496 male middle aged subjects (23-66 years) were tested with a protocol including a self-completed structured sleep questionnaire (translation of the Madison sleep cohort study form), anthropometry (including neck, waist and hip girth) and a simple, non-invasive nose-throat examination by a specialist physician. The subjects were classified according to the 10 major groups of the ISCO-88 classification (International Labour Office). Our sampling base did not contain subjects in the major groups 1 (senior officials, legislators), 6 (fishery and agricultural workers), and zero (armed forces), thus these groups were not represented in the analysis. To improve the power of the statistical analysis, groups 3 and 4, 5 and 7, 8 and 9 were merged, the analysis thus including four categories. The differences in demographic data were negligible; as expected, smoking was more prevalent in low socio-occupational groups (difference non-significant). A history of chronic bronchitis was more frequent in low socio-occupational groups, while a low physical job labour was more frequent in higher occupational groups. We did not find any differences in the prevalence of sleep-related respiratory disturbances (snoring, sleep apnoeas). This first study of the possible association between socio-occupational factors and sleep disordered breathing was negative, but we believe further studies, on larger samples, with a more homogeneous distribution of social groups are warranted.
The relation between individual trait differences, social mobility and social structure is central to social biology. Because genetic variance underlies phenotypic variance in some of these traits, for example IQ, several mechanisms determine the population variance. Polygenic inheritance is the basic mechanism. Social mobility and assortative partner choice distribute the trait variance within generations. This feedback circle is constrained by sociological conditions at several levels of analysis. Fundamental to this theory of social assortment is the relation between social-biological traits and social class on the one hand, and these traits and social mobility on the other hand. The focus here is on the relation between social class, social mobility and cognitive ability. The National Child Development Study is drawn upon, including the last follow-up (1999-2000). By approaching this relationship through various methods, both social-biological and sociological aspects of this research question can be assessed.
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