Occupational stress management in the legal profession: Development, validation, and assessment of a stress-management instrument

Abstract

Objectives: Despite regularly reporting high levels of occupational stress, lawyers are an under-researched group in this field. The first objective of this research is to develop a short measure assessing two common work stress management techniques (WSMS) commonly employed by lawyers: relaxation and cognitive restructuring. A second objective is to assess the impact of three key job characteristics and two work stress management techniques upon levels of psychological strain, job satisfaction, and work engagement in a sample of lawyers. Method: Drawing on the Job Demands Control-Support theoretical explanation of occupational stress, we assessed the impact of the two stress management techniques upon three key psychological outcomes, in comparison with three common job characteristics. An anonymous survey was administered to lawyers employed in one Australian state and produced a respondent sample of N = 114. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis produced acceptable psychometric results for the six-item WSMS. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that job demands was not directly associated with any of the three criterion variables. Importantly, cognitive restructuring was as strongly associated with job satisfaction and work engagement, compared to the three job characteristics. Cognitive restructuring techniques were also associated with high levels of work engagement even when experiencing high job demands. Conclusions: The implications for occupational stress experienced by lawyers, the current popularity of occupational resilience and organisational wellness programs, and the assessment of generic job characteristics are all discussed.