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Research Methods In Occupational Health Psychology, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Chu-Hsiang Chang

Publications and Research

http://www.springerpub.com/occupational-health-psychology.html

Occupational Health Psychology (OHP) is a rapidly expanding interdisciplinary field that focuses on the science and practice of psychology in promoting and developing workplace health- and safety-related initiatives. This comprehensive text for undergraduate and graduate survey courses is the first to encompass a wide range of key issues in OHP. It draws from the domains of psychology, public health, preventive medicine,nursing, industrial engineering, law, and epidemiology to focus on the theory and practice of protecting and promoting the health, well-being, and safety of individuals in the workplace and improving the quality of work life.

The text addresses key psychosocial …

Burnout Or Depression: Both Individual And Social Issue, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Éric Laurent

Publications and Research

In view of the profound problems attached to the construct of burnout, we recommended in our that occupational health specialists focus on (job-related) depression rather than burnout to help workers more effectively. The phenomena of interest (burnout or depression) should not be confused with the perspectives (individual or social) adopted to elucidate those phenomena. Both burnout and depression are best explained through the interaction of social or external conditions with individual or internal dispositions.

On The Depressive Nature Of The “Burnout Syndrome”: A Clarification, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Pierre Vandel, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

Key theoretical arguments and empirical findings converge to suggest that the burnout construct captures a depressive phenomenon. The reluctance to consider burnout a depressive condition may be due to (a) a neglect of the stress–depression relationship and (b) a difficulty coordinating dimensional and categorical approaches to psychopathology in burnout research. The dimensions and categories constitute two ways of describing (psychopathological) phenomena. Thus, dimensions and categories should be heuristically combined rather than opposed: burnout and depression can be studied both as ‘‘processes’’ or ‘‘end-states’’. Clarifying what burnout actually is matters in terms of conceptual parsimony, theoretical integration, nosological consistency, interventional effectiveness, …

Burnout Or Depression: Both Individual And Social Issue, Bianchi Renzo, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

In view of the profound problems attached to the construct of burnout, we recommended that occupational health specialists focus on (job-related) depression rather than burnout to help workers more effectively. Epstein and Privitera (April 8, 1398) rejected our recommendation on the grounds that burnout is not a “purely individual syndrome”. Problematically, Epstein and Privitera attributed to us an idea that is not ours. In these authors’ view, equating burnout with depression is synonymous with mistakenly individualising a social problem. For two reasons, the argument that depression cannot replace burnout because burnout is a social problem whereas depression is an individual …

Vital Exhaustion, Burnout, And Other Avatars Of Depression, Bianchi Renzo, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

In our view, there is a worrying tendency in psychology and medicine to let proliferate “depression-like” constructs—a transgression of the scientific canon of parsimony. The problem is not limited to vital exhaustion (VE). Burnout, a condition akin to VE, has been shown to problematically overlap with depression. Compassion fatigue, a condition that shows particularly blurred definitional contours, is also uncomfortably close to depressive symptomatology. The construct of neurasthenia may be part of this confusing trend as well, although neurasthenia has been elevated to the status of nosological category in the ICD. Construct proliferation jeopardizes knowledge growth by undermining theory building …

Defining Physician Burnout, And Differentiating Between Burnout And Depression—I, Bianchi Renzo, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

A redefinition of burnout as a depressive condition is called for so that the harmful effects of unresolvable job stress can be more accurately and comprehensively assessed. As research compellingly suggests, reducing the harmful effects of unresolvable job stress to the experience of burnout's dimensions of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment is mistaken in that it denies the depressive core of the syndrome referred to as “burnout.” Replacing the notion of burnout by the concept of job-induced depression would help us be more effective in the management of occupational adversity.

Consequences Of Job Stress For The Psychological Well-Being Of Teachers, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Renzo Bianchi, Peter Luehring-Jones

Publications and Research

This chapter examines research on the relationship between job stressors and mental health (depressive symptoms, burnout, and mental disorders such as depression) in teachers. Teachers are exposed daily to job stressors (e.g., student disruptiveness) that have been linked to adverse mental health effects. Epidemiologic research indicates that when compared to members of other groups, teachers experience higher rates of mental disorder, although some studies question that conclusion. Large-scale studies indicate when compared to members of other occupational groups, teachers are at higher risk for exposure to workplace violence, with its adverse mental health consequences. Longitudinal research has linked teaching-related stressors …

‘Burnout Syndrome’: From Nosological Indeterminacy To Epidemiological Nonsense, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

All in all, Imo’s review is undermined by the very research it relies on. We recommend that researchers interested in burnout begin at the beginning, that is to say, by establishing a reasoned, clinically-founded (differential) diagnosis for their entity of interest. As long as investigators do not complete the required groundwork for establishing a diagnosis and remain unable to distinguish a case of burnout from either a noncase or an existing disorder, conclusions regarding the prevalence of burnout will be nonsense. To close this comment, we note that an immediately available solution for effectively monitoring and protecting physicians’ occupational health …

On Parsimony And Tautology In The Study Of Acute Coronary Syndrome, Bianchi Renzo, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

In a recent study, Zhang et al. concluded that burnout was associated with poor physical function and low quality of life after acute coronary syndrome (ACS). In our estimation, the authors' study has at least two unnoticed, though major, methodological limitations: not controlling for depression and using a burnout scale that is a questionable choice.