How Sociodemographic Variables and Social Values Predict Work-Related General Anxiety in Brunei Public and Private Sector Employees

Abstract

Background: Numerous studies show that employees tend to have anxiety and other psychological problems at places of work. The present investigation explored the prevalence of work-related general anxiety in 860 randomly chosen Brunei public and private sector employees.

Methods: A quantitative field survey design was used to reach many participants and employed binary logistic regression procedure with backward elimination in analyzing the data.

Results: Males were far less likely to have work-related general anxiety compared to females. Employees who sought help from prayer / religion were nearly 1.7 times more likely to have work-related general anxiety compared to those who do not get such help. Workers who regularly got help from family members on problems had also high likelihood of possessing a great amount of work-related general anxiety compared to those who did not often get help from family members. Employees with a low educational background had high odds ratios for possessing work-related general anxiety compared to those with high education.

Compared to high scorers: (1) low scorers on peace and security variable were less likely to have work-related general anxiety; (2) low scorers on personal wellbeing and happiness were also less likely to experience work-related general anxiety; (3) low scorers on self-regulation and self-direction were as well less likely to have work-related general anxiety; and (4) low scorers on employer-employee relationships were equally less likely to have work-related general anxiety issues. However, (5) low scorers on moral obligations were 1.6 times more likely to have work-related general anxiety problems; (6) low scorers on satisfaction with work-related achievements were 1.9 times more likely to have work-related general anxiety; (7) low scorers on interpersonal trust variable had high odds ratios for having work-related general anxiety problems; and (8) low scorers on work stress problems were surprisingly also highly likely to have work-related general anxiety problems.

Conclusions: Sociodemographic variables and social work values presented above had different effects on work-related anxiety in employees. These are the variables to which attention and priority should be directed and accorded when counselling workers.