title: The significance of job-anxiety in a working population.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Job-anxiety, as distinguished from trait-anxiety, is associated with long-term sickness absence. The prevalence of job-anxiety within a working population is not known. Identifying individuals who would benefit from intervention might be useful.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To investigate job-anxiety in employees not undergoing treatment for mental health illness, firstly by assessing the level of job-anxiety and work-related avoidance tendencies in a working sample, and secondly by testing whether job-anxiety is distinguishable from trait-anxiety.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional survey of a convenience sample obtained through personal contact distribution. Employees from different professional settings completed an anonymous questionnaire and provided information on their employment status. The State-Trait-Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T) was used to measure trait-anxiety and the Job-Anxiety-Scale (JAS) was used to assess job (state) anxiety.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was a 69% response rate (240 responses); 188 responses were available for analysis of whom 62% were women. There were no employees with high trait-anxiety. Ten employees (5%) reported increased job-anxiety and of these nine employees reported high 'tendencies of avoidance and workplace absence'. Avoidance was most often accompanied by the comorbid job-anxieties 'job-related social anxiety', 'fear of changes at work' and 'fears of existence', 'anticipatory' and 'conditioned' job-anxiety and 'panic symptoms'.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this sample, self-reported job-anxiety appeared as a specific type of anxiety as opposed to trait-anxiety. In the workplace job-anxiety can present as job-avoidance and sickness absence and should be distinguished from trait-anxiety. In practice, employers and occupational health practitioners should be aware of those employees prone to sickness absence.
authors.affiliation: Research Group Psychosomatic Rehabilitation, Charité University Medicine Berlin and the Rehabilitation Center Seehof, Teltow/Berlin 14513, Germany. beate.muschalla@gmx.de
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Muschalla
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Heldmann
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fay
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000145:classification / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000145:classification / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017132:Workplace / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Job-anxiety; occupational health; sickness absence; trait-anxiety; workplace.