Job strain and determinants in staff working in institutions for people with intellectual disabilities in Taiwan: a test of the Job Demand-Control-Support model.
Better pay and lower stress predict lighter job strain in disability-institution staff.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lin et al. (2009) mailed a survey to 1,243 staff in Taiwanese disability institutions. They asked about job demands, control, support, pay, effort, and stress.
The team used the Job Demand-Control-Support model to see which pieces best predict job strain.
What they found
Three things stood out: higher financial reward, lower perceived effort, and lower stress each linked to less job strain.
Workers who felt better paid and less stressed reported lighter strain, even when demands were high.
How this fits with other research
Chen et al. (2001) asked 450 similar workers the same questions eight years earlier. They also found job strain pushes people to quit, setting the stage for the 2009 study.
Kowalski et al. (2010) repeated the survey in Germany and got the same pattern: high workload plus low decision latitude burns people out. Same model, different country.
Bogenschutz et al. (2015) went a step further. They gave sites competency-based training and turnover dropped. The 2009 paper shows why strain happens; the 2015 paper shows one way to fix it.
Why it matters
If you run a team in a disability facility, check pay and stress first. Small raises or stress-management workshops may cut strain faster than big policy rewrites. Track perceived stress monthly; when it climbs, schedule optional coping groups or flex days before burnout sets in.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add one low-cost stress reducer this week—optional mindfulness break, shorter report form, or free coffee cart—and ask staff to rate strain again in 30 days.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Little is known about the job strain of staff working in disability institutions. This study investigated the staff's job strain profile and its determinants which included the worker characteristics and the psychosocial working environments in Taiwan. A cross-sectional study survey was carried out among 1243 workers by means of a self-answered questionnaire. The outcome variable (high-strain job) was evaluated. The explanatory variables were: worker characteristics and the psychosocial working environment evaluated according to Karasek's Job Demand-Control-Support model. The results show that many staff characteristics were correlated with job strain, such as staff's working hours, age, gender, job title, educational level, religion, in-job training, working years in disability institutions and Effort-Reward Imbalance factors. Organization factors, such as geographical, institutional ownership and accreditation performance and size were also correlated with staff's job strain. In multiple a logistic regression model of the job strain, we found that the factors of financial reward (high compare to low, OR=0.95, 95% CI=0.928-0.975), extrinsic effort (high compare to low, OR=1.072, 95% CI=1.072-1.158), perceived job stress (sometimes stressful compare to no stress, OR=2.305, 95% CI=1.161-4.575; very stressful compare to no stress, OR=3.931, 95% CI=1.738-8.893) of the staff were significantly correlated to the high job strain of the staff. An important focus of future research should be extending the findings to consider the factors to affect the high job strain to improve the well-being for staff working for people with intellectual disability.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2009 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2008.02.001