More than just “stressful”? testing the mediating role of fatigue on the relationship between job stress and occupational crashes of long-haul truck drivers
Introduction: Recent evidence consistently highlights the adverse work environment of long-haul professional drivers, whose task structure typically involves the performance of extensive shifts, driving under stressful working conditions. In this regard, job stress and fatigue – that are highly prev...
- Autores:
-
Llamazares, Javier
- Tipo de recurso:
- Article of journal
- Fecha de publicación:
- 2021
- Institución:
- Universidad El Bosque
- Repositorio:
- Repositorio U. El Bosque
- Idioma:
- eng
- OAI Identifier:
- oai:repositorio.unbosque.edu.co:20.500.12495/7128
- Palabra clave:
- Fatigue
Job stress
Long-haul truck drivers
Occupational accidents
Psychosocial factors at work
- Rights
- openAccess
- License
- Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional
| Summary: | Introduction: Recent evidence consistently highlights the adverse work environment of long-haul professional drivers, whose task structure typically involves the performance of extensive shifts, driving under stressful working conditions. In this regard, job stress and fatigue – that are highly prevalent in this workforce – seem to play a crucial role in explaining this group’s negative traffic safety outcomes. The aim of this study was to assess whether work-related fatigue is a mechanism that mediates the relationship between job stress, health indicators and occupational traffic crashes of long-haul truck drivers (LHTD). Methods: The data used in this study were collected from 521 Spanish long-haul truck drivers (97% males) from all 17 regions of Spain, with a mean age of 47 years. Results: Utilizing structural equation models (SEM), it was found that work-traffic crashes of long-haul truck drivers could be explained through work-related fatigue that exerts a full mediation between job stress (job strain), health-related factors and traffic crashes suffered during the previous two years. Discussion: Overall, the findings of this research support that a) stressful working conditions and health issues of drivers have significant effects on traffic crashes, and b) fatigue is a mechanism relating stress-related factors and work-traffic crashes of long-haul drivers. This study highlights the need of stress- and fatigue-management policies and interventions, in order to reduce the crash risk of long-haul truck drivers. |
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