Results
Table 1 shows the characteristics of study participants
according to gender. Age distribution was similar for men
and women. Almost half of all men were in the lower
income tertile, whilst women were equally distributed
amongst all income tertiles. In line with this more women
(60%) than men (50%) had higher levels of education.
Regarding occupation, most of the sample had routine nonmanual
occupations, with more men in this sub-group but
similar proportion of men and women as professionals.
Women had a higher prevalence of psychological distress
(38.5%) than men (26.9%) and more women (16.4%) than
men (11.7%) fell in the high strain quadrant (high job
demands and low control). Likewise more women than
men reported high demands and low social support at work
but low control at work was reported equally by men and
women. More women (33.3%) than men (25.5%) were
night shift workers, which may reflect the larger number of
hospital workers in this group.