JOB STRAIN AMONG POST-OFFICE MAILHANDLERS

A sample of 4,018 U.S. Post Office mailhandlers nationwide completed a questionnaire assessing job demands, decision latitude, hazardous con ditions, supervisory support, physical exertion, physical/psychologica l strain, sleeping problems, muscle strain, and job dissatisfaction. S cales were obtained from Korsakow's Job Content Questionnaire. Compara tive data were available from the U.S. Quality of Employment Surveys ( for ''mail carriers and handlers'') and two samples of contemporary wo rking populations. Hierarchical multiple regressions controlled for ag e, sex, education, length of postal service, Vietnam veteran status, a nd marital status. Mailhandlers reported significantly higher levels o f negative job characteristics than both the national and contemporary samples, and their levels of job demands and decision latitude place them in the ''high strain'' quadrant of Karasek's model. Women not onl y reported higher strain, job dissatisfaction, and sleeping problems t han men, but also higher levels of negative job characteristics. While other demographic variables, particularly Vietnam veteran status, wer e associated with stress-related outcomes, structural aspects of the w ork environment were more strongly associated with outcome. The author s conclude that postal mailhandlers face a highly stressful work envir onment.