WORK STRESS IN JAPANESE COMPUTER ENGINEERS - EFFECTS OF COMPUTER-WORK OR BIOEDUCATIONAL FACTORS

To examine whether computer work and bioeducational factors (age and school career) have significant effects on work stress in computer engineers in Japan, we administered a stress questionnaire to 764 male computer engineers and 211 male office workers in a computer-manufacturing factory in Tokyo. Four scales of perceived psychological stress at work examined were work overload, poor human relationships at work, unsuitable job, and competition-dismissal anxiety. The results of the three-way analysis of variance, in which age (20-29, 30-39, and 40-49 years), school career (high school and university graduates), and computer work (computer engineers and office workers) were three variation factors, indicated that: (1) there were no significant differences in all scores of work stress between computer engineers and office workers (P > 0.05); (2) scores for unsuitable job and poor human relationships at work were significantly higher in high school graduates than in university graduates (P < 0.05); and (3) there were significant age differences in scores for three scales of work stress (unsuitable job, competition-dismissal anxiety, and work overload: P < 0.001, P < 0.01, and P < 0.05, respectively). These findings suggest that computer work has no significant effect on perceived work stress in computer engineers; on the other hand, age and school career do have effects. © 1993 Academic Press, Inc.