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 “If you think about a typical 24-hour day for a college student,
aside from sleeping, students are going to school and studying and
also working part-time, four hours a day on average,” lead study
author Allison Vaughn, a psychology researcher at San Diego State
University, said by email.
“It makes sense that the people a college student works with would
also have the potential to be health-relevant,” she added. “Students
who need to work their way through school should try to make the
most of these workplace relationships, just as you would with any
friendship or romantic relationship.”
Many college students work during school, with estimates ranging
from 58 percent to 72 percent of undergraduates, Vaughn and
colleagues write in the Journal of American College Health. Working
at least 20 hours a week is also a reality for 24 percent to 47
percent of these students.
To understand the connection between students’ relationships at work
and their mental health, the researchers surveyed 170 working
students enrolled in an introductory psychology class in March 2011.
Students ranged in age from 18 to 35, and on average were about 20
years old.
Most participants worked part-time, averaging about 19 hours a week,
and had typically held their current jobs for about 15 months.
The questionnaires touched on the quality of relationships with
supervisors and up to three co-workers, job satisfaction and mental
health issues such as stress, depression and anxiety.
Generally, the students rated their supervisors as being moderately
or very helpful and their co-workers as being only slightly
upsetting. They described the majority of their work relationships
as supportive, or were ambivalent.
Participants who were ambivalent about their supervisors had poorer
mental health than their peers who had positive relationships with
their bosses.
The students who felt ambivalent also had lower job satisfaction and
less support, more thoughts about leaving the job and more burnout.
Results for coworkers were similar, with ambivalent relationships
linked to worse mental health.
The students who had more supportive relationships at work had fewer
symptoms of stress, lower depression and anxiety and higher
satisfaction with life, the authors note.
The study is small, and doesn’t prove a cause-and-effect connection
between troubles at work and poor mental health, the researchers
caution. It’s also possible that students’ perceptions of their work
relationships don’t match up with reality, they acknowledge.
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“Perceptions of relationships may be colored by mental health, so it
might actually be that students with better mental health or higher
self-confidence to start with interpreted relationships at work as
being more positive in general,” said Kathy Rospenda, a researcher
in psychiatry and psychology at the University of Illinois at
Chicago.
Even so, the findings add to a growing body of evidence that
negative experiences at work can contribute to mental health
problems among students, Rospenda, who wasn’t involved in the study,
said by email.
The best time for students to assess whether a job will provide a
positive work environment is during the hiring process, said Rebecca
Vidourek, a researcher in health promotion and education at the
University of Cincinnati in Ohio.
“It is important for students to ask good questions when they
interview,” Vidourek, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by
email. “Asking about demographics, work climate, flexibility for
students, etc. can help determine if a workplace will be a good
personal fit.”
Once they’re on the job, challenges in relationships with
supervisors or coworkers may also be an opportunity for students to
learn communication skills, Paola Pedrelli, a mental health
researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said by
email.
“Some students may be passive and then resent the responsibilities
they have been assigned because they were not assertive or may be
aggressive and be reprimanded,” Pedrelli, who wasn’t involved in the
study, said by email.
At the same time, students who work more hours also have to be
cognizant of how work can impact their mental health, she added.
“Students who work full-time may not have time to sleep, eat well,
exercise and engage in pleasant activities,” Pedrelli said. “Neglect
of these areas may lead to low energy, irritability, and poor
concentration and academic performance and overall dissatisfaction.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1TUbKit Journal of American College Health,
online July 7, 2015.
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