Judicial stress: the roles of gender and social support

Because judges experience a myriad of occupational stressors, they are at risk of experiencing secondary trauma, burnout, negative mental/physical health, poor job performance and low job satisfaction. These experiences might not be uniform, however, as gender and social support might mitigate such stress-related outcomes. Judges from two states in the United States completed a variety of stress and subjective performance measures. Social support was related to less perceived stress, less burnout, and more job satisfaction, but only for males. This suggests that males and females might receive qualitatively different types of social support. Different types of social support could differ in their ability to buffer judges from these stress-related outcomes. Further, among judges with high social support, females scored higher than males on subjective job performance; the opposite pattern occurred for judges with low social support. Thus, a lack of social support appears to have a negative effect on performance self-appraisals but only for females. Results have implications for the psychological study of stress and for programs designed to reduce judges’ stress.     

Could exercise improve mental health and cognitive skills for surgeons and other healthcare professionals?

Workplace-related illness is common in the UK, and in healthcare more than five million working days over 10 years have been lost as a result. Occupational stress is well known and can affect clinicians at any stage, yet many healthcare professionals continue to work with this or other psychological problems (including anxiety, chronic fatigue, and burnout) as they do not wish to let their colleagues down. Mental health issues might be dismissed, particularly in surgery, because there is a misconception that surgeons can cope better with stress than those working in other specialties, and are better protected from clinical burnout. The benefit of exercise on physical health is clear, but its role in the maintenance of good mental health and well-being should not be underestimated. As society adopts an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, exercise for many has a lower priority than other activities. In this article we give an overview of the mental health issues that might affect doctors and surgeons, and explore how exercise can benefit our well-being and clinical performance.     

中国西部地区医生的职业倦怠与工作家庭冲突的相关研究

目的 探讨中国西部地区医生的职业倦怠及其与社会支持、工作家庭冲突的关系.方法 采用职业倦怠量表中国版(CMBI)、社会支持以及工作影响家庭和家庭影响工作问卷对611名西部地区的医生进行了调查研究.结果 中国西部地区的医生中,14.1％处于情感衰竭状态,49.4％处于人格解体状态,33.1％感到成就感降低；27.3％的医生轻度倦怠,43.7％中度倦怠,3.3％高度倦怠.工作5～10年和工作11 ～20年的医生情感衰竭较为严重；本科和硕士学历的医生人格解体最严重；高级和中级职称的医生人格解体水平较高；二级医院医生人格解体程度最高,三级医院医生的成就感最高.Logistic回归分析提示社会支持对职业倦怠有保护作用,家庭工作冲突则为危险因素.结论 中国西部地区医生职业倦怠现状较为严重,工作与家庭之间的平衡和良好的社会支持有助于缓解医生的职业倦怠.