Health impact of work stressors and psychosocial perceptions among French hospital workers during the COVID-19 outbreak: a cross-sectional survey

ObjectiveTo compare global health, mental health impact of work stressors and psychosocial perception of healthcare workers (HCWs) and non-HCWs in a hospital after the first peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in France.MethodsA validated version of the SATIN (Santé Au Travail Inrs université Nancy 2)questionnaire with adapted scoring was used to collect data on health and impact of work stressors. This questionnaire was sent to all workers at a hospital in July 2020 and was self-administered online. In a multinomial regression model, we included HCW status, age, gender and front-line worker status as covariates.ResultsData from a total of 1405 participants were included. We found that being an HCW, male and front-line worker was a risk factor for negative perception of work demand (OR 7.35, 95% CI 4.2 to 11.47; OR 2.55, 95% CI 1.11 to 5.89; OR 1.78, 95% CI 1.04 to 3.06). Being an HCW was a predictive factor for stress (OR 1.47, 95% CI 1.04 to 2.08), poor global health (OR 1.71, 95% CI 1.14 to 2.55) and negative perception of work activity environment (OR 1.9, 95% CI 1.3 to 2.8).ConclusionWe have shown that all HCWs suffered from some health impact shortly after the first peak of the COVID-19 outbreak. We underline some stressors with high impact, including work demand, work abilities and organisational context, and emphasise the need for risk management.

Identifying Psychosocial Risks and Protective Measures for Workers’ Mental Wellbeing at the Time of COVID-19: A Narrative Review

The spread of the Sars-COV-2 virus has caused crucial changes in the workplace. Almost two years after the start of the COVID-19 era, new and old psychosocial risks in the workplace threaten workers’ mental wellbeing and represent an occupational health challenge. The aim of this review is to identify the most relevant psychosocial factors, negative or protective, contributing to occupational stress during the current pandemic. A literature search was conducted in PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Google Scholar and PsycINFO and a total of 51 articles were deemed suitable for inclusion in the review. Analysis of the retrieved articles revealed five main topics related to psychosocial wellbeing in the workplace: (1) Support from colleagues and organizations; (2) Home–work interface and balance; (3) Changes in workload and work demand; (4) Job competence and appropriate training; (5) Job insecurity and financial stress. All five themes were associated with occupational stress and poor mental outcomes, like anxiety, depression, and burnout symptoms. Peer and organizational support seem to have a major impact on workers’ mental wellbeing. Recognizing these factors and projecting interventions that mitigate their effects or boost their efficacy is a fundamental step towards dealing with COVID-19 in the workplace, or any such future emergencies.

HRM and Employee Significant Behavior: Explaining the Black Box through AMO Theory

The purpose of this study is to explore the employees’ perceptions towards the role of HRM policies and practices in assisting them to perform the desired behavior in contributing to the organizational goals achievement. Employees’ perceptions are explored through their actual experiences with the implementation of HRM policies and practices. Interviews were conducted with employees in five different star-rating hotels to understand contextual factors that can be observed. Different perceptions on the role of HRM policies and practices in influencing employees’ performance are reported from the interviews. Instead of acting as a medium to transmit the message of their work expectations, employees view the HRM policies and practices as a common process happening in their organization and unrelated to their work demand. Therefore, findings of this study could light a torch of awareness for organizations to give more attention to the employees’ responses and feedback to minimize their dysfunctional behaviors that are detrimental to organizational achievement. Suggestions are given to increase the employee desired behavior relevant to the organizations from the perspective of AMO theory.

Prevalence of Anxiety among Paramedic Students in Saudi Arabia

Background: Anxiety disorders are the most common of all psychiatric illnesses and result in considerable functional impairment and distress. The stressful nature and hard work demand of studying and practicing paramedics makes them more prone to psychiatric illnesses one of which is Anxiety. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of anxiety among paramedic students in Saudi Arabia.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among Paramedic students of third and fourth year from Emergency Medical Services of College of Applied Medical Sciences at all KSAU-HS branches in Jeddah, Riyadh and Al-Ahsa’a in Saudi Arabia. Data were collected in May 2020. The study utilized the General Anxiety Disorder -7 (GAD-7) test to screen for anxiety and assess its severity level in paramedic students. Results: There were a total of 181 participants, of which 133 (73.5%) were male students, and with almost all participants being unmarried (99.4%). For GAD-7 test, 32.6% had no anxiety, while the most had mild anxiety (43.1%), and 14.9% had moderate anxiety, with the fewest (9.4%) had severe anxiety.Conclusion: Significant levels of anxiety were reported among the students and most of them showed excessive levels of worrying and nervousness, which affected their academically and occupationally. Hopefully, more researches are required to assess the prevalence of anxiety among paramedic practitioners. Addressing the problem at an earlier stage will positively affect the students who will become practitioners in the future.

Optimal Shift Scheduling at Ibu Pejabat Polis Daerah (IPD) Kuala Muda using Goal Programming

Many workplaces encounter complex problems in preparing an optimal work scheduling to meet the 24 hours work demand especially in shift working hours. The schedule needs to consider many constraints and multi objectives at the same time. A mathematical model such as Goal programming is able to cater this kind of problems. Thus, this study was designed to provide a systematic and optimal schedule for police officers at Criminal Unit, IPD Kuala Muda, Kedah. This study is aimed to formulate the best model for the shift rotating schedule of the police officers and to find the best way to optimize the police scheduling related to the limitations, requirements of the police station and the preferences of the police. Lingo software is used to run the model. However, only one out of three goals set for the study was achieved. The new schedule obtained shows that all police officers have the same number of working days, which is 21 days in the 28-day planning period. The new schedule produced is better than the previous manual schedule since it takes less time to prepare it without neglecting the constraints involved. To improve efficiency and flexibility on the generated schedules, it is recommended to use other methods such as hybrid swarm-based optimization and many new limitations and preferences should be also considered in the analysis.

Health Impact and Psychosocial Perceptions among French Medical Residents during the SARS-CoV-2 Outbreak: A Cross-Sectional Survey

This study compared the impact on mental health and the psychosocial perceptions of medical residents and healthcare workers (HCWs) in a hospital after the first peak of the SARS-CoV2 outbreak in France. A validated version of the SATIN questionnaire with a modified scoring system was used to collect data on health and psychosocial factors. This questionnaire was sent to all workers at the hospital in July 2020 and was self-administered online. Using a multivariate multinomial regression model, the study included demographic variables such as age, gender, years at workplace and the relevant of covariate as HCW status. One thousand, four hundred and six questionnaires were available for analysis including 393 non-HCWs, 891 HCWs and 122 medical residents. Medical resident status is a risk factor for stress (OR 4.77 [2.48–9.18] p < 0.001), worse global health (OR 4 [1.7–9.6] p < 0.001) and mental health (OR 2.58 [1.3–5.1] p = 0.02), negative perception of work demand (OR 8.25 [3.5–19.6] p <0.001), work activity environment (OR 3.18 [1.5–6.7] p = 0.02) and organizational context (OR 4.9 [2.38–10.4] p <0.001). Action on collective support, protection equipment, organizational context and framework are important.

Prevalence of Organizational Stress, Burnout and Work-Related Musculoskeletal Discomfort (WMSD) among Civil Engineers - An Observational Study

Introduction: Organizational stress is an emotional, behavioral, physiological response to aggressive & harmful aspect of work, work environment and organization climate. Burnout is state of mental exhaustion caused by excessive & prolonged stress. High work demand, poor work control and weak social support may create circumstances for development of stress among Civil engineers. Purpose: The construction industry as a whole has been suffering from mental stress due to range of stressors imposed on the work force, resulting in behavioral habits which are not conductive to a healthy lifestyle; physical symptoms signalling burnout, chronic stress and depression which should be managed on time. Here arises the need to find Prevalence of organizational stressor, burnout and Work-related MSD among Civil Engineers. Methodology: 110 Participants of both genders were asked to fill Standardized scales “organizational stressor scale”, “burnout questionnaire” & “Cornell Musculoskeletal Discomfort Questionnaires (CMDQ)” by personal interview from construction sites of Ahmedabad. Datasheet compiled in Microsoft Excel. Result: Organizational stressor shows:- 18.18% mild stress, 76.36% moderate stress & 5.45% severe stress. On burnout scale 60.9% has fair chance of burning out, 5% has begun to burnout & 3% has advanced stage of burnout. CMDQ shows maximum affection of pain in knee & neck. Conclusion: Civil engineers have moderate level of organizational stress and have moderate to high amount of job related stress which have begun to burnout, they are susceptible for Work related MSD with significant prevalence for knee pain. Key words: Burnout, Civil engineers, organizational stressor, work-related musculoskeletal disorder.

Capturing Interactive Work for Nurses—First Validation of the German IWDS-N as a Multidimensional Measure

The theoretical framework of interactive work provides a multi-dimensional perspective on the interpersonal demands of nurses in nurse–patient interactions. It is defined by four dimensions: emotional labor directed to the self and others, cooperative work, and subjective acting. While the framework stems from qualitative research, the aim of the current study is to translate it into a quantitative scale to enable measurement of the high interpersonal demands that so often remain implicit. For this reason, we conducted an online survey study (N = 157; 130 women, 25 men, 2 divers) among professional nurses in Germany (spring 2021) to test the derived items and subscales concerning interactive work, which resulted in a 4-factor model that was verified with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The survey further captured additional information on established constructs concerning job-related well-being (e.g., burn out, meaningfulness), job characteristics (e.g., work interruptions, time pressure) and individual resources (coping strategies) that are supposed to correlate with interactive work demand scales for nurses (IWDS-N), to determine the quantitative nature of their relations. The results show that the subscales of the IWDS-N have adverse effects on indicators of work-related well-being. Moreover, negative job characteristics, such as time pressure, are positively correlated with subscales of the IWDS-N and are therefore problem-focused coping strategies as an individual resource. The results emphasize that a multidimensional consideration of self-regulatory processes is useful to capture the subtle and complex nature of the interactive work demands of nurses. The current study is the first that developed a quantitative, multi-dimensional measure for interactive work demands, which can help make implicit demands in service work explicit.

Effects of Work Demand and Changes in Leisure Activity on Postretirement Memory

This study evaluated the interactions between prior cognitive work demands and changes in cognitively stimulating leisure activities during the retirement transition and their relationship to changes in postretirement memory. We drew data ( N = 631) from five waves of repeated annual measurements as part of the HEalth, Ageing and Retirement Transitions in Sweden study. We modeled memory trajectories using piecewise growth-curve models. Findings revealed that increased cognitive stimulation from leisure activities had beneficial effects on postretirement memory development among individuals reporting previously low cognitive work demands. Our findings provide partial evidence supporting public health recommendations, stating that retirees from less intellectually demanding occupations will gain from increases in cognitive leisure following retirement.

A Study on Moderating Role of Family-Friendly Policies in Work–Life Balance

The present study aims to explore the relationship between work demand and work–family conflict, and family demand and family–work conflict. This study also tries to find out the moderating effect of family-friendly policies between the proposed relationships. The data for this study were collected from 217 women employees working in steel manufacturing companies of Jharkhand. The results of the study indicate that there is positive correlation between work demand and work–family conflict, and family demand and family–work conflict. Moreover, family-friendly policies are observed to significantly moderate the relationship of work demand and work–family conflict, but they do not significantly moderate the relationship of family demand and family–work conflict. This article gives insights into understanding the role of family-friendly policies to reduce the work–family conflict among women employees. A few measures are suggested, and employers should adopt such policies to minimize the work–family conflict, which can lead to better work–life balance