A study on occupational stress, mental health and impact on work capacity of biosafety laboratory workers in China

Background: Biosafety laboratory (BSL) is engaged in highly pathogenic microbial experimental activities, because the operation of pathogenic microorganisms are highly infectious, pathogenic and no means of prevention and treatment, etc., often make the staff in the experimental activities under greater psychological pressure, in a state of stress and stress, may lead to a decline in work capacity or failure Methods An electronic questionnaire was used to survey 1162 BSL staff in Xinjiang as the study population. The Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), the Effort-Reward imbalance (ERI) scale, and the Work Capacity Index Questionnaire were used to measure their anxiety, occupational stress, and work capacity levels. The Mann-Whitney U test or Kruskal-Wallis H test was used to compare the occupational Stress, Anxiety, and Work Ability scores. The effects of demographic and work-related variables, i.e., confounding factors, were eliminated to the maximum extent possible by the Propensity Matching Scores (PSM) method. Multifactorial analysis of the relationship between anxiety and occupational strain and work ability of BSL employees. The relationship between occupational stress, anxiety, and work ability was quantified by building structural equation models through AMOS 26.0 software. Results The median and 25th and 75th percentile scores of anxieties, occupational stress, and work ability of the study participants were 48.75 (41.25, 57.50), 6.0 (5.0, 8.0), and 39.0 (36.0, 42.0) points, respectively. After propensity matching to eliminate confounders, multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that anxiety (OR = 1.08,95% CI:1.04 ~ 1.12), effort dimension (OR = 1.02,95% CI:0.93 ~ 1.13) and reward dimension (OR = 1.13,95% CI:1.06 ~ 1.21) significantly affected BSL employees' work ability (all p < 0.001). The results of structural equation modeling showed that both anxiety and occupational stress among BSL employees had direct effects on work ability with standardized path coefficients (β) of -0.42 and − 0.35, respectively (both P < 0.001), and occupational stress could indirectly affect work ability through anxiety (β=-0.24, P < 0.001). Conclusion Our findings suggest that anxiety and occupational strain are extremely prevalent among BSL employees. In addition, work ability decreases with increasing anxiety and occupational stress, and improvement of anxiety and occupational stress can improve the work ability of BSL employees.