Prospectus

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Work and Stress

Course
2014-2015

Admission requirements

Master’s students Occupational Health Psychology

Description

This course focuses on the role of workplace factors in employee health and well-being. Both the potential negative consequences, i.e. mental and physical health problems, and the positive consequences, i.e. engagement, personal growth/learning, will be addressed.

A series of introductory lectures introduces students to the most important occupational stress models (e.g., Job-Demand-Control-Support model, Effort-Reward Imbalance model, Person-Environment fit model). Empirical research regarding the impact of work factors on mental and physical health (e.g. burnout, cardiovascular disease) is discussed.

After these lectures, sessions will be dedicated to presentations on a contemporary issue in the work and stress field prepared by the students themselves. Regarding the topic of the presentation, students may put forward own suggestions, or choose a topic from an existing list (e.g. work-family conflict, impact of shift work on health, determinants of burnout, the experience of ‘flow’). In order to ensure active involvement and participation in the presentations and ensuing discussion, all students will read provided key publications on the topics at hand before each presentation session.

Towards the end of the course students will write a short paper related to the topic of their presentation.

Course objectives

Students will

  • acquire scientific up-to-date knowledge on the area of occupational stress

  • be familiar with the most prominent occupational stress models

  • be able to prepare and give a presentation in English on an occupational stress topic

  • be able to write a short paper on an occupational stress topic based on up-to-date scientific literature

Timetable

Work and Stress (2014-2015):

Registration

Course

Students need to enroll for lectures and work group sessions. Please consult the Instructions registration

Mode of instruction

  • Three lectures

  • student presentations and discussion (6 sessions)

  • individual feedback on draft of presentation and draft of paper
    Full attendance is mandatory.

Assessment method

Assessment is based on: oral presentation (40% of the grade), individual paper (50% of the grade), attendance and active participation (10% of the grade). Note: both the presentation and the paper should be minimally graded 6 to pass the course.

The Faculty of Social Sciences has instituted that instructors use a software programme for the systematic detection of plagiarism in students’ written work. In case of fraud disciplinary actions will be taken. Please see the information concerning fraud

Blackboard

Information on blackboard.leidenuniv.nl

Reading list

  • Leka, S. & Houdmont, J. (Eds.) (2010) Occupational Health Psychology. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. (note: this book will also be used in the course ’Interventions in Occupational Health’)

Further readings will be announced via Blackboard. Exemplary literature includes:

  • Bakker, A.B., Schaufeli, W.B., Leiter, M.P., & Taris, T.W. (2008). Work engagement: An emerging concept in occupational health psychology. Work and Stress, 22, 187-200.

  • Chandola, T., Britton, A., Brunner, E., Hemingway, H., Malik, M., Kumari, M., Badrick, E., Kivimaki, M., & Marmot, M. (2008). Work stress and coronary heart disease: what are the mechanisms? European Heart Journal, 29, 640-648.

  • Ferrie, J.E., Kivimaki, M., Shipley, M.J., Davey Smith, G. & Virtanen, M. (2013). Job insecurity and incident coronary heart disease: The Whitehall II prospective cohort study. Atherosclerosis, 227(1), 178-81.

  • Muecke, S. (2005). Effects of rotating night shifts: Literature review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 50, 433-439.

  • Salin, D. (2003). Ways of explaining workplace bullying: A review of enabling, motivating and precipitating structures and processes in the work environment. Human Relations, 56, 1213-1232.

  • Silverstein, M. (2008). Meeting the challenges of an aging workforce. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 51(4), 269-280.

  • Van Steenbergen, E., & Ellemers, N. (2009). Is managing the work-family interface worthwhile? Benefits for employee health and performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30, 617-642.

  • Zijlstra, F. & Sonnentag, S. (2006). After work is done: Psychological perspectives on recovery from work. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 15(2), 129-138.

Contact information

Dr. M. van der Doef
Room 2A07
Tel.: +31 (0)71 527 3987
E-Mail: doef@fsw.leidenuniv.nl