Impacts of Stressors and Stress on the Injury Incidents of Construction Workers in Hong Kong
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 136, Issue 10
Abstract
Construction workers (CWs) are the key and indispensable contributors to every construction project. Their psychological feelings greatly influence their behaviors and safety performance. To improve CWs’ safety performance in dangerous working environment, the current research aims to identify the various stressors affecting two types of stress of CWs (i.e., job stress and emotional stress) and to explore the impacts of the two types of stress on CW injury incidents in Hong Kong. Eleven stressors were identified through factor analysis: work overload, role ambiguity, lack of autonomy, unfair reward and treatment, appropriate safety equipment, optimism, interrole conflict, poor workgroup relationship, lack of feedback, poor physical environment, and unsafe environment. The results of correlation and regression analyses reveal that (1) among the two types of stress identified, injury incident of CWs was found to be affected by emotional stress only, (2) emotional stress is predicted by work overload, interrole conflict, poor physical environment, unfair reward and treatment, and appropriate safety equipments, and (3) poor workgroup relationship, work overload, and interrole conflict predict job stress of CWs. Based on the result, various recommendations are suggested to employers on how to minimize CW injury incidents.
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Acknowledgments
The work described in this paper was fully supported by the Strategy Research Grant project (Project No. UNSPECIFIEDCityU 7002451).
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Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 136 • Issue 10 • October 2010
Pages: 1093 - 1103
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© 2010 ASCE.
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Received: Jul 3, 2009
Accepted: Mar 12, 2010
Published online: Mar 16, 2010
Published in print: Oct 2010
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