Work engagement, emotional attitude to work and quality of relations in 'early' and 'late' dual career couples: the mediating role of satisfaction with one's achievements.

BACKGROUND: The aim of the present research was to evaluate the relationship between the level of work involvement and emotional attitude to work and the quality of marital relationships of partners in dual career relationships, divided into 'early career' and 'late career' relationships. In addition, the mediating role of satisfaction with one's accomplishments was assessed. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE: The study included 184 dual career couples, where both partners pursued a professional career in a competitive labour market, often performed managerial functions and reconciled their professional roles with parental roles, where 69 were 'early career' relationships and 115 were 'late career' relationships. All subjects in the dual career marriages had higher education; the age of the respondents ranged from 28 to 43 years and all of them had at least one child. With respect to the applied research tools, the AVEM Questionnaire, the Labour-Family Matching Questionnaire, the Matching Marriage Questionnaire (KDM-2) and the Feeling of Happiness Questionnaire were used. RESULTS: The results show a negative impact of the level of professional and emotional work engagement on the quality of marital relations in the relationship; however, the observed trend only refers to the 'late career' relationships. Therefore, it can be concluded that the level of engagement in professional roles at the moment of entering into a relationship is an important moderating factor in these relationships. In addition, it was found that the level of self-satisfaction eliminates this negative relationship. We can say that the level of satisfaction is the mediator of the relationship between involvement in professional roles and the quality of marital relationships. CONCLUSIONS: The level of work engagement and emotional attitude toward work affects the quality of personal life and relationships in a couple. However, this impact can vary due to additional variables such as satisfaction with one's own accomplishments and type of relationship.

Psychosocial work strains and well-being in the process of adapting to occupational stress: longitudinal studies of offshore rig workers.

BACKGROUND: The work on offshore rigs is related to a number of physical and mental burdens. The subject matter of the paper refers to the assessment of the relation between the mode of adapting to occupational stress and the feeling of well-being among the employees of offshore rigs in Poland. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE: The research procedure is a longitudinal study and encompasses analysis of data between 1993 and 2014. 167 employees of the Polish offshore rigs were studied: all of them were male and the average age was 42. Measuring tools were used to assess the subjective occupational stress, psychosocial work conditions, evaluation of physical and mental well-being and styles of coping with stress. RESULTS: The perceived level of stress directly affects mental well-being (r = .19, p = .048): the higher the level of stress, the worse is the mental well-being (ß = -.30). In a considerable part, the dependence between occupational stress and mental well-being may be clarified by the impact of the style of coping with occupational stress and the rate of stress dynamics (r = .32, p = .004). The higher the share of task-oriented coping style as compared to the emotion and avoidance-oriented style, the higher is the self-reported mental well-being. The higher the probability of affiliation with the group reporting a decrease in stress, the higher is the self-reported mental well-being. Perceiving stress has no direct or indirect impact on physical well-being (ß =. 09; ß = .08; ß = -.11). CONCLUSIONS: A dependence exists between the process of adapting to stress and the level of the self-reported mental well-being of the rig employees. The higher the probability of adaptation to the difficult situation at work in a way that the self-reported stress is reduced, the higher the self-reported mental well-being. Perceiving stress bears no direct or indirect impact on the physical well-being.

Exploring Resiliency and Parentification in Polish Adolescents.

Parentification is a form of distorted division of roles and responsibilities in the family where the roles of parent and child are reversed. A situation that goes beyond the child's capabilities and exhausts resources usually yields numerous negative consequences. Nevertheless, in some circumstances, parentification may be beneficial by shaping resiliency. The main aim of the study was to examine the relations between parentification characteristics and resiliency. There were 208 adolescents (Mage = 14.55; SDage = 1.00) who participated in the study. Resiliency was evaluated using the Polish Scale for Children and Adolescents SPP-18. Parentification level was measured with the polish Parentification Questionnaire for Youth. The analyses revealed significant relations between parentification and resiliency dimensions. The relations were different based on the participant's gender. The obtained results underline the role of resiliency in shaping the perception of family role dysfunctions such as parentification.

The Relations Among Types of Parentification, School Achievement, and Quality of Life in Early Adolescence: An Exploratory Study.

Children who experience parentification may have trouble performing developmental tasks due to being overwhelmed by their family caregiving roles and responsibilities. Past studies have found that parentification is negatively associated with academic achievement. However, most of these studies are limited in that they are retrospective and examine the association but not the mechanisms shaping them. The aim of the study was to explore to what extent diverse types of parentification relate to academic achievement and to what extent these relations are mediated by self-reported quality of life among adolescents. The study sample was composed of Polish early adolescents (N = 191; age: M = 14.61; SD = 1.26). Types of parentification were measured with the Parentification Questionnaire for Youth, and quality of life was assessed with KidScreen27. School achievement was measured based on mean semester grade. We explored the associations among study variables and performed six mediation models in the planned analyses. Overall, bivariate relations were significant in a theoretically expected way, although the effect sizes for these associations were rather small. In the mediation analyses, the results showed that four of the six models were not significant. Different from previous studies, instrumental parentification was positively related to school achievement. Additionally, this positive association was mediated by adolescents' general quality of life. Taken together, the findings were similar and different from the empirical literature base on types of parentification and select outcomes.

Personality determinants of health behaviours of merchant navy officers.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: An individual's health behaviours are highly correlated with selected areas of their personality as well as their values, needs and goals. However, this relationship may be modified by a number of objective factors associated with the individual's functioning, lifestyle or occupational activity. The main objective of the presented study was to investigate the relationship between personality profiles and health behaviours of merchant navy officers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The influences of personality on health behaviours were additionally compared between two groups: mariners and managers. Thirty-two seafarers of an officer rank and 45 managers aged between 29 and 48 took part in the study. Three research tools were used: NEO-Five Factor Inventory, Health Behaviour Inventory and Inventory of Physical Activity Objectives. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that selected personality variables are significant predictors of individual aspects of health behaviour, however the strength of their influence may differ, depending on the peculiarities of the performed work.

Purpose in life and work-related stress in mariners. Mediating role of quality of marriage bonds and perceived anxiety.

BACKGROUND: The specific character of mariners' work is connected with many factors conducive to stress, overload, fatigue and emotional tension, all of which can negatively influence subjective quality of life, including particularly the sense of life's purpose and meaning. However, over the course of entire life one plays many various roles and takes part in many areas of life which influence one another, both positively and negatively. Undoubtedly one of such areas, essential from the point of fulfilling individual's important needs, is one's family and marriage that can function as a crucial factor for neutralising on-the-job problems and tensions. AIM: The research presented here attempts to verify the relation between stress perceived by mariners and their sense of purpose in life along with the mediating role of marriage quality and anxiety levels. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 210 mariners working on deep-sea ships were examined. The following research tools were applied in the study: the Purpose in Life Test (PIL), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) and the Questionnaire of Suitable Marriage (KDM). RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The results arrived at indicate that both marriage satisfaction and anxiety levels can indeed mediate the relation between stress and sense of purpose in life among mariners.

Stress and the level of perceived anxiety among mariners: the mediating role of marital satisfaction.

The challenges of professional life are becoming more and more demanding on people's private life, especially if a given profession requires many sacrifices and has negative consequences for one's physical and psychological health, as is the case of professional mariners. The purpose of this study is to attempt to verify the correlation between the quality of emotional bonds, manifested in marital satisfaction, and the level of stress and anxiety perceived by mariners. The study encompasses 210 mariners working on seagoing ships. The following research tools were employed for the purpose of the study: State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Stress Experience Questionnaire (PS) and Well-matched Marriage Questionnaire (KDM). The results indicate that marital satisfaction is correlated with the level of stress and anxiety among mariners, constituting a stress inhibitor.

Long-term follow-up for organic dysfunction in breech - presenting children.

BACKGROUND: The authors performed a long term outcome analysis of minimal brain damage in children delivered in breech presentation, and related the results to the mode of delivery (vaginal or by cesarean section). MATERIAL/METHODS: In the Department of Obstetrics at the Medical University of Gdansk (Poland), 917 breech deliveries took place between 1981 and 1990. Excluding stillbirths and multiple pregnancies, 874 deliveries were analyzed. We received positive responses from 232 mothers, who provided us with considerable information about the children's further development and problems that had arisen during their school years. All the respondents were contacted by telephone, and 83 of them agreed to visit our Department with their children to undergo a psychological examination - the following tests were performed: 1) the Bender-Kopitz Test (BKT), and 2) the Benton Visual Retention Test (BVRT). RESULTS: The mode of delivery for all groups and subgroups had no influence on the incidence of organic brain disorders in later childhood, assessed by the Benton Visual Retention test and by the Bender-Kopitz test. CONCLUSIONS: Vaginal breech deliveries are safe in both primiparous and multiparous mothers.