Chronic illness in the workplace: stigma, identity threat and strain

Details

• Personal Author:
  Barnes-Farrell JL ; McGonagle AK
• Description:
  Chronic illness affects a large and growing number of workers in the United States and globally. Stigmatization (devaluation) at work based on chronic illness may be stressful for individuals and therefore may lead to negative psychological consequences (i.e. strains). In order to better understand stressful experiences of stigma for workers with chronic illnesses, a model of stigma-related identity threat (perceptions that one is at risk of being treated negatively at work because of chronic illness) was tested on a sample of 203 working adults with chronic illnesses. The following variables related to workers' perceptions of chronic illness-related identity threat: workers' boundary flexibility (flexibility in managing their work and life), their meta-perceptions of devaluation (perceptions of others' devaluation of them based on illness) and their job self-efficacy (feelings of confidence related to performing their job). In turn, perceptions of identity threat related to both feelings of psychological strain and (lower levels of) perceived work ability. Surprisingly, neither stigma centrality (how fundamental illness is to one's identity) nor supervisor support related to workers' identity threat perceptions. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Behavior Men Mental Health Occupational Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Women
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Chronic Illness Humans Identity Threat Models Psychological-effects Psychology Risk-factors Stigma Strain Stress Workers

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• ISSN:
  1532-3005
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Connecticut ; Michigan ; OSHA Region 1 ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  310-321
• Volume:
  30
• Issue:
  4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20047560
• Citation:
  Stress Health 2014 Oct; 30(4):310-321
• Contact Point Address:
  Alyssa K. McGonagle, Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, 5057 Woodward Ave, 7th Floor, Detroit, MI 48202
• Email:
  alyssa.mcgonagle@wayne.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• Performing Organization:
  University of Connecticut Storrs, Storrs-Mansfield
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Stress and Health
• End Date:
  20250630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:768b11f2a76212fa41847f971d23b112a43dd9f3a7e336a8eb4d4fb6a48fca070ce9f5ce6e609d377529644db2eb907e0cf6ee2fe3d4babbf8505f8d4ea57c8c
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/202582/cdc_202582_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 448.18 KB ]