Occupational injustice and job stress: A cross-sectional study of mental health workers in Japan

Abstract

Intervention supporting workers and organizations for achieving occupational justice is expected to be a new responsibility of industrial occupational therapy. However, there are few quantitative studies on occupational injustice among mental health workers. The purpose of the present study was to investigate statistical information of occupational injustice and the relationship between occupational injustice and work-related stress among mental health workers. We conducted a questionnaire on all employees of a certain medical corporation near the Tokyo metropolitan area of Japan and received 385 responses (recovery rate 82.6%). The Occupational Justice Questionnaire and the New Brief Job Stress Questionnaire were used for measurement. The results indicated that less than 10% of workers experienced injustice (deprivation 4.6%, alienation 5.2%, imbalance 4.7%, marginalization 4.2-6.0% and general unfairness 8.8%). Injustice was also associated with many aspects of work-related stress, and the level of injustice showed a positive correlation with the level of work-related stress. We expect the results of the present study to contribute to the development of industrial occupational therapy in Japan.