The main objective of this research was to determine the frequency of the occurrence of moral dissonance in the workplace, and its possible consequences for employees’ psycho-physical health. ...External ethical dissonance at work is defined as a condition stemming from a discrepancy between the employee action and ethical standards in place in the organization, and is primarily caused by the unethical pres-sure of the management. A sample of 311 employees of both genders, employed both in the private and public sector, with different educational levels and of different ages and seniority, have applied measures of psycho-physical health, measures of frequency of ethical dissonance at work, and the Demo-graphic Characteristics Questionnaire. Results show that out of 311 respondents, 72% of them report that they have been in a state of external ethical dissonance at least once in the past year, so we conducted further analyses on data gathered from these 224 employees. Factor analysis of the SUED2R questionnaire has revealed that measures of external ethical dissonance are classified into three indicators, according to the type of unethical pressure: lying for the benefit of the orga-nization, harassing others, and supporting wrong people in the organization. We have found that the incidence of such ethi-cal dissonance is significantly higher in the private than in the public sector, that the increased incidence of all three forms of work dissonance is associated with an increased incidence of symptoms of health disorders. It is concluded that the pressure to act unethically (corrupt behavior) probably contributes to the deterioration of employees’ health. The significance of these findings is that, for the first time, they clearly demonstrate a systematic link between pressuring employees into corrupt behavior, and their psycho-physical health.
The role of episiotomy as a protective factor against pelvic floor disorders postpartum has been debated for many years, but its routine use has been hitherto discouraged in the literature. ...Comparisons between restrictive and routine use of episiotomy in existent literature, however, fail to include any consideration relating to quality of life. The aim of this study, therefore, is to state the role of episiotomy in preserving the perineum from damage, in order to prevent the influence of pelvic floor disorders on women's psycho-physical wellness after the sixth month postpartum.
A follow-up telephone interview was performed among 377 primiparous and secondiparous Caucasian women who had a child by spontaneous or operative vaginal delivery in 2006 using a self-created questionnaire and King's Health Questionnaire (KHQ).
The mean age at delivery was 35.26 (±4.68) years and episiotomy was performed in 59.2% of women. Multivariate linear regression shows episiotomy associated to higher quality of life after the sixth month postpartum by correlating with inferior values of King's Health Questionnaire (p < 0.05).
Episiotomy appears to be a protective factor for women's wellness. Women who had episiotomy and who experienced perineal symptoms have a better psycho-physical health status in the 12.79 months (±3.3) follow-up.
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