Stress and Job Performance of Healthcare Workers amidst COVID-19 Pandemic: The Mediating Role of Burnout

Healthcare workers in hospitals are one of the frontliners in handling the COVID-19 issue. However, previous studies were mostly directed on doctors and nurses, albeit many other workers are involved in managing the COVID-19 issue at a hospital. Physical and mental work pressures in performing their jobs and responsibilities potentially affect their performance. This study aims to shed some light on the direct influence of job stress on the job performance of healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic with burnout as a mediating variable. This study make use of a cross-sectional approach by employing a questionnaire to gather the data from 194 healthcare workers at Aisyiyah Ponorogo General Hospital Indonesia. Drawing on the Structural Equation Modeling Partial Least Square, the results reveal that (1) job stress has a negative influence on the job performance of the healthcare workers, (2) job stress is proven to have a positive effect on the burnout of the healthcare workers, and (3) burnout is found to partially mediate the effect of job stress on the job performance of the healthcare workers. By referring to the compelling results, valuable suggestions are offered to the hospital managers and further related studies. This study’s results further contribute to providing recommendations for the hospital management as well as the government concerning on factors affecting the healthcare workers’ job performance, especially at the age of a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

To the 125th anniversary of the first defense in Russia by a woman of a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine

Speaking about the lesser preparation of women for mental work, we do not want to express by this a hint of their inability for this work. On the contrary, we may be more than anyone else, would like to see it, would like full scope for female development and are sure that under the changed circumstances, the female mind will eventually become as receptive and productive as the male brain. If now more was opened up for a woman, or even any kind of application of mental forces in civil life, for example, if she could be a doctor, teacher, etc., then it goes without saying that along with the request, and these forces. V. M. Florinsky (1866)

EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES OF CARBON DIOXIDE INTAKE INTO THE ROOM FROM A PERSON ENGAGED IN MENTAL WORK

Умственный труд достаточно разнообразен и характеризуется различной степенью ответственности, монотонности, внимания, уровнем эмоционального напряжения. Для обеспечения комфортных условий пребывания человека на постоянном рабочем месте, необходимо в том числе организовывать системы климатизации. Наиболее перспективными для указанной деятельности, являются персональные системы вентиляции, обеспечивающие качественную воздушную среду в зоне дыхания человека при одновременном снижении капитальных и эксплуатационных затрат по сравнению с традиционными видами систем вентиляции (смешивающая, вытесняющая вентиляция). Однако, при проектировании таких систем следует ориентироваться не на «среднего условного человека», а учитывать индивидуальные особенности работника (возраст, пол и др.), выполняющего конкретный вид умственной деятельности. С целью уточнения фактической величины углекислого газа, выделяемого человеком при определенной умственной работе, проведены натурные экспериментальные исследования, результатом которых является подтверждение характера и динамики изменения углекислого газа в помещении при отсутствии (бездействии) вентиляционных систем (линейная зависимость), а также уточнение величины выделяющейся двуокиси углерода при конкретном виде умственной деятельности (исследовался труд инженера-проектировщика). Intellectual work is quite diverse and is characterized by different degrees of responsibility, monotony, attention, the level of emotional tension. In order to ensure comfortable conditions for a person staying at a permanent workplace among other things it is necessary to arrange climate control systems. The most promising ventilation systems for the above activities are personal ones that provide high-quality air environment in the breathing zone of a person while reducing capital and operating costs compared with traditional types of ventilation systems (mixing, displacement ventilation). However, the design of such systems should be guided not by the "average conditional person" but by the individual characteristics of the worker (age, gender, etc.) performing a particular type of mental activity. In order to clarify the actual value of carbon dioxide emitted by a person doing a particular mental work, we conducted a series of field experimental studies. They resulted in confirmation of the nature and dynamics of changes in carbon dioxide in the room in the absence (inactivity) of ventilation systems (linear dependence). As well we clarified the value of emitted carbon dioxide at a particular type of mental activity (in this article we studied the work of an engineer-designer).

MEANS OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN PEDAGOGICAL PROCESS OF PRESCHOOL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

The article examines the means of physical education. The author analyzed the programs of physical education, where specific objectives and content of physical education of children of preschool age were determined. The research proves that the physical education of children in institutions of preschool education cannot be spontaneous or disorganized. Successful completion of the objectives of physical education depends on the following combination of different physical means: physical activities, hygienic factors and healing forces of nature. It is introduced by the author that healing forces of nature (air, the Sun, water) are widely-used to strengthen the health and body of a child.Strengthening of the health and body in everyday life is facilitated by rationally selected clothes, shoes, bedding; optimal temperature; regular aeration; use of cool water for washing hands, face, mouth and throat rinsing.The importance of hygienic factors that increase the effectiveness of the impact of exercise on the human body is outlined. All parts and systems of the body develop better when the premises where they exercise meet the standards of hygiene and proper nutrition is organized. The fact of failure to meet the requirements of cleanliness of the premises, area, sports equipment, toys, clothing and footwear can cause various diseases in children and reduce the positive impact of exercise. Moreover, the use of physical means of physical education in the lifestyle of children will not only promote their physical development but also intensify mental work in the learning process.The findings confirm that successful physical education of children depends on the quality of the use of physical education in the pedagogical process of preschool education. Keywords: physical education; physical development; means of physical education; healing forces of nature; hygienic forces of nature; physical exercises; objectives of physical education; preschool children.

Professional Foreign Language Training in the Context of the Digital University

Currently, the practical level of foreign language proficiency of philology graduates does not always correspond to the social order of society. In this paper, a model for professional foreign language training of philology stu-dents was developed, theoretically justified and experimentally tested. For this purpose, the Moodle tool was widely deployed and we identified and ex-perimentally tested pedagogical conditions that ensure the effectiveness of professional foreign language training for philology students. The experi-mental work involved a random sample of 305 students of the "bachelor" level of the training direction 5B021000 (6B023)–foreign philology. The re-sult of the qualitative and quantitative analysis allows to conclude the effec-tiveness of the proposed model of professional foreign language training of philology students based on Moodle, which is confirmed by the calculations during the statistical processing of the research results. The scientific novel-ty of the study is that the pedagogical conditions that ensure the effective-ness of the Moodle-based professional foreign language training of philology students were identified and experimentally tested. The results of the study showed the effectiveness of using distance learning in the current health context due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Complex ekphrasis of the Hermitage moving in the latest russian poetry

Poetic ekphrasis may be not only simple, like a description of a work of art as a system of images that naturally come to life in an artistic description, but also complex, meaning the stay of exhibits in a museum or gallery. Complex ekphrasis is used also be different, in contrast to the type of contextualization of exhibits in the space intended for them, and a special ekphrasis of movement can be distinguished, where it is not the delay in front of the exhibits that is important, but the experience of the museum space itself as strange, existentially significant and associated with key existential moments in the life of a lyric character. In such a subspecies of ekphrasis, it is not the action of the imagination that is essential, but the skills of orientation in a value-marked space, with signs of up and down, openness and closeness, due to which the return of aesthetic experience in a complex existential situation is thought. The article offers a close reading of several examples of such an ekphrasis of gallery movement. In the poetry of Mikhail Eremin, the Saint Petersburg Hermitage turns out to be, first of all, a place of various forms of reflection, and the overlap between the metaphorical (reflection and attention to the phonetics of speech) and literal (mirror) understanding of reflection forms a mechanism for the quickest transition from spatial confusion to the aesthetic experience of the Hermitage collection. In the poetry of Sergei Stratanovsky, on the contrary, the Hermitage is shown through the eyes of a conventional character, immune to culture, where the mechanisms of such a transition are absent, and any attempt to simplify spatial self-awareness turns into a total immunity to art. In the poetry of Asya Veksler, the Hermitage turns out to be a hero with its own subjectivity, modeled on Petersburg in Anna Akhmatova's Poem Without a Hero, and this allows the episodes of a love drama to be developed as confirmed by various formal decisions and to erase the border between the aesthetics of space premises and the aesthetics of works. All three solutions imply the general properties of a complex ekphrasis of displacement: 1) a presence of an existential basis of a poetic utterance, detached from the usual modes of relations with time, partially blocking the usual modes of aesthetic perception of works of art, 2) a constant search for means of overcoming this blocking, which can be successful, if associated with the acceleration of sensory experiences, and unsuccessful if associated with frustration and/or routine admiration, 3) a situation in which architectural and design decisions are perceived as deeply symbolic and valuable, while works of art remain mysteries among other mysteries, and only the correctly found speed of mental work with the past and the present allows them to be perceived, 4) uses of the names of artists and plots of works not as symbols, but as part of the route, with the ambiguity of this route, the lack of sufficient motivation for it in the plot, but partial support from the book explications or educational habits, 5) an attention to the formal components of both the interior and individual works, as the only key to integrating these solutions into large value oppositions. A close reading of these poems allows for a better understanding of the importance of formal analysis for a comprehensive understanding of fine art and plastics and their reflection in literature as an art that deals with different modes of sensing time.

The model of psychotherapeutic assistance to mental health specialists to develop resilience

Introduction. Today’s crisis and stress conditions increase the number of cases of PTSD diagnosis and associated symptoms. Since mental health specialists are key workers in providing assistance in this context, they are now experiencing more intense mental work load than ever before. The personal characteristics of specialists and the occupational risks associated with empathic contact with patients who have experienced a traumatic event pose a certain danger to specialists and require special research attention. In this context, the need to prepare appropriate protocols, psychotechnologies and models of psychotherapeutic work to restore and develop resilience is highlighted. Aim. The purpose of the article is to describe the main standpoints of the created psychotechnology of the development of resilience of mental health specialists and operationalization of its practical part, namely a model of psychotherapeutic assistance to mental health specialists for the development of resilience. Results. The created psychotechnology for the development of resilience of mental health specialists contains developed theoretical, diagnostic and psychotherapeutic stages. The psychotherapeutic stage of psychotechnology of resilience of mental health specialists is created taking into account specific intervention strategies, principles of process organization and means (methods and techniques) that ensure the process of resilience development and is presented as a model of psychotherapeutic assistance to mental health specialists to develop resilience. The operationalization of the model allowed one to form the following scheme of strategic direction of psychotherapeutic assistance: resource vector <=> in-depth vector => behavioral vector. Each vector is provided with appropriate methods and techniques that help solve the problem of resilience development, as well as improve post-traumatic growth. Conclusions. The model of psychotherapeutic work for the development of resilience of mental health specialists, based on an integrative approach using multimodal interventions, is proposed. The initial approbation of the model allowed to determine the scheme of strategic direction of psychotherapeutic interventions, «portrait of a resilient specialist», as well as important aspects for its further improvement.

Workplace Demands and Cognitive Health Inequities Across Race and Ethnicity: A Scoping Review

This PRISMA informed scoping review sought to understand the longitudinal association between workplace demands with cognitive health; and to review how race and ethnicity are investigated in this area of research and evidence of moderating effects. Peer-reviewed articles were drawn from five databases. Inclusion criteria were populations aged 18+, broad conceptualization of workplace demands (e.g., occupational complexity, mental work demands), and cognitive health outcomes (e.g., cognitive functioning, ADRD). The majority of studies drew from theories that did not interrogate heterogeneity and diverse aging experiences. Consequently, the majority of studies (85%) did not investigate inequities by race and ethnicity although variables and methods are available. Cognitive health inequities are evidenced but findings are mixed and more rigorous causal research is needed. We discuss integrating emerging critical theories (e.g. Critical Race Theory, critical gerontology, minority stress) to sharpen the focus on racial health inequities in an emerging area of prevention research.

Relationships between Physical Activity, Work Ability, Absenteeism and Presenteeism in Australian and New Zealand Adults during COVID-19

Public health movement and social restrictions imposed by the Australian and New Zealand governments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the working environment and may have affected health behaviours, work ability, and job performance. The aim of this study was to determine the associations between health behaviours and work ability and performance during COVID-19 restrictions and if health behaviours were related to demographic or population factors. A cross-sectional survey was used to gather responses from 433 adult employees in Australia and New Zealand between June and August 2020. The survey requested demographic information and used the International Physical Activity Questionnaire, Work Ability Index, and the World Health Organisation’s Health and Work Performance Questionnaire. Multivariate regression models were used to explore relationships between the identified variables while controlling for several possible confounders. Being sufficiently physically active was associated with higher reported physical (aOR = 2.1; p = 0.001) and mental work abilities (aOR = 1.8; p = 0.007) and self-reported job performance (i.e., lower presenteeism) (median +7.42%; p = 0.03). Part-time employees were 56% less likely (p = 0.002) to report a good or very good mental work ability. Those with existing medical conditions were 14% less likely (p = 0.008) to be sufficiently active and 80% less likely (p = 0.002) to report rather good or very good physical work ability. Being sufficiently active was associated with higher physical and mental work abilities and better job performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Employers should support opportunities for regular physical activity and provide specific support to individuals with medical conditions or in part-time employment.