Relationships among nicotine dependence, psychological symptoms and perceived stress in petroleum exploration workers

In this study,the aim is to compare the psychological symptoms and perceived stress levels of the petroleum exploration workers who smoke with that of who do not smoke; and to identify whether or not the psychological symptoms and perceived stress levels of the workers who smoke differ with respect to their nicotine dependence levels. In order to identify sociodemographic properties, psychological sysmptoms, perceived stress levels and nicotine dependence levels of the workers who express that they smoke; sociodemographic data form which is prepared by the researcher, The Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL-90-R), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND), are applied on 106 individuals by the researcher, respectively. When the effect of smoking on psychological symptoms are examined, it is discovered that the SCL-90-R somatisation subscale and additional configural items scores of those who smoke or quit are higher than those who do not smoke. As a result of the measurement regarding perceived stress, it is found out that there is not any effect of smoking on perceived stress levels although the scale score averages of non-smokers are higher. In this study, the great majority of the participants who smoke have low-level nicotine dependence. Yet, when the relationship between nicotine dependence and psychological symptoms are assessed, interpersonal sensitivity and paranoid thoughts are found out to be weakly and positively correlated with nicotine dependence. With respect to many psychological symptoms within SCL-90-R, mid-level nicotine dependent participants received higher scores than those with low-level and high-level nicotine dependent participants. Nicotine dependence levels of participants were not correlated with perceived stress.