Post-Traumatic Stress of Employees Working as Slaughterers

Abstract

Workplace factors and the psychological health of employees are inextricably linked as work conditions or job demands may significantly impair employee wellbeing and affect employees’ coping and general psycho-social adjustment (Lowman, 1993; Schaufeli, Bakker, & Van Rhenen, 2009). Negative workplace factors such as high job demands, low autonomy, long hours, work-related stress, negative management style, low income, insecurity, workplace violence, injury and discrimination have been shown to lead to poor psychological health (Hillier, Fewell, Cann & Shephard, 2005; Kleiner and Pavalko, 2010; Kopp, Stauder, Purebl, Janszky & Skrabski, 2007). Violent work conditions, as found in the slaughterhouse environment, therefore pose a potentially serious threat to employee wellbeing and formed the primary concern of this qualitative study.