Stress and stress management behaviors of insured persons in case of unemployment at Social Security Office in Bangkok.

Abstract

Background : Insured persons tend to become stressful as a result of income loss each consecutive month, high living expenses and social pressures that surround them. Conducting literature reviews, the researchers have found few people who are interested in stress and stress management behavior in this group of people.

Objective : To study the levels of stress, stress management behaviors and related factors of the insured for unemployment at 3 social security offices in Bangkok.

Design : A cross - sectional descriptive study.

Setting : Three Employment Offices in Bangkok.

Materials and Methods : Insured persons in case of unemployment (N = 225) from 3 social security offices in Bangkok completed firstly a selfadministered questionnaire focusing on social demographic information, previous work-related factors, self-analysis stress test, and secondly a stress management behaviors questionnaire. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, One-Way ANOVA and stepwise multiple regression analysis.

Results : About 57% of the insured unemployed persons had normal stress level; 23% had lower stress level;15% slightly higher stress than normal stress level, and 3% significantly higher than normal stress level; females were more likely to have significant higher stress than the male. Most insured persons (85.8%) had intermediate levels of stress management behaviors. Factors related to stress management behaviors were gender, age, educational levels, income before becoming unemployed and cigarette smoking. Insured persons were female gender, young age, Bachelor’s degree, income before unemployment more than 25,000 baht and nonsmoking. They stress management behaviors better than the other groups with statistical significance when compared with the same factors.

Conclusion : Most insured persons for unemployment had normal stress levels with intermediate levels of stress management behaviors. As the subjects were insured persons who received their unemployment benefits at the employment offices. They were unemployed (1 to 6 months) who merited from unemployment benefits or lay-off. Predictive factors of stress management behaviors were total income before unemployment, age and gender.