Job design impact on plasma lipid level, depression, job burnout, employee fatigue and workload in workers from Isfahan province Gas Distribution Company

Background: How to do the job and its design is a variable that influences the job related stress. Fatigue and job burnout are the most common side effects due to the stress at workplace. In addition, recent evidences are linked the relationship between psychological stress and exhaustion with a variety of physical symptoms and diseases like high blood pressure, elevated blood cholesterol and cardiovascular diseases. The aim of the current research was to investigate the relation between compose of job-burnout, fatigue, depression and job overload as psychological variables with cholesterol and triglyceride increments and investigate moderator role of demand-control imbalance.

Material and Methods: Statistical populations for this study were personal of Isfahan Gas Distributor Company in 2011. The instruments were Burnout Questionnaire of Maslach, Fatigue Questionnaire of Shirom, Overload Questionnaire of Shirom, The Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) and demand control Questionnaire of Karasek. Plasma lipid was measured as dependent variable.

Results: Findings indicated that there were significant differences among all psychological variables (except for depersonalization) between the two appropriate and inappropriate job design groups and medical variables. It was also observed a higher level of serum lipid in the inappropriate job design group.

Conclusion: The high demand developed personal emotional exhaustion which in turn caused increased the blood serum lipid. However, the control on the job acted as a supportive shield preventing the individual against the developing of job burnout.