Do Attitudes towards Work or Work Motivation Affect Productivity Loss among Academic Employees?

Work motivation and job attitudes are important for productivity levels among academic employees. In situations where employees perceive problems, for example, health-related and work environment-related problems, the ability to perform at work could be affected, which may result in fewer publications, reduced quality and less research funding. Few studies, however, have paid attention to productivity loss among academic employees in order to understand how, or if, the perceived loss is affected by the reported problems, either alone or in combination with work motivation and job attitudes. To evaluate whether attitudes towards work—measured as job satisfaction, organisational commitment and work motivation—are associated with productivity loss in the workplace, a cross-sectional study was conducted. This type of design is required as performance is highly variable and is affected by changes in health and work status. This study includes employees who reported either health-related problems, work environment problems or a combination of both (n = 1475). Linear regression analyses were used to answer the hypotheses. Higher levels of motivation, job satisfaction and organisational commitment were associated with lower levels of productivity loss among employees who experienced either health-related or work environment problems. High work motivation and high commitment were significantly associated with lower levels of productivity loss among employees who experienced a combination of problems. In summary, productivity loss among academic employees is not only affected by health-related problems or problems in the work environment but also by work motivation, job satisfaction and organisational commitment; i.e., these factors seem to buffer, or moderate, the reduction in performance levels for this group of employees.

Serial-Multiple Mediation of Job Burnout and Fatigue in the Relationship Between Sickness Presenteeism and Productivity Loss in Nurses: A Multicenter Cross-Sectional Study

Background:In China, sickness presenteeism, job burnout, and fatigue are common among nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. We propose the prevalence of sickness presenteeism can adversely affect nurses' physical and mental health, negatively impact their work productivity and quality, and pose a threat to patients' safety. Therefore, this study examines the mechanism of productivity loss caused by sickness presenteeism, fatigue, and job burnout.Objectives:To investigate the serial-multiple mediating effect of job burnout and fatigue in the relationship between sickness presenteeism and productivity loss among nurses.Methods:A multicenter cross-sectional survey was undertaken by administering an online questionnaire from December 2020 to May 2021. Stratified cluster sampling was used to include 3,491 nurses from 14 hospitals in Shandong Province, China. Variables were measured using the Sickness Presenteeism Questionnaire, Stanford Presenteeism Scale, Chalder Fatigue Scale, and Maslach Burnout Inventory. Data analyses were carried out using descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance, independent-samples t-test, Pearson correlation analysis, hierarchical regression, and bootstrapping method.Results:From the 3,491 nurses who volunteered in this online survey, only 2,968 valid questionnaires were returned. Sickness presenteeism exhibited a prevalence of 70.6% during the COVID-19 pandemic. The average score of health-related productivity loss was 15.05 ± 4.52, fatigue was 8.48 ± 3.40, and job burnout was 39.14 ± 19.64. Sickness presenteeism was positively associated with fatigue and job burnout while job burnout was positively associated with nurse fatigue. Sickness presenteeism, fatigue, and job burnout were also positively correlated with health-related productivity loss. Statistically significant paths via the single mediation of fatigue and job burnout were established. A statistically significant serial-multiple mediating effect of fatigue and job burnout on the association between sickness presenteeism and productivity loss accounted for 35.12% of the total effect size.Conclusions:There was a high incidence of sickness presenteeism and job burnout among Chinese nurses. High-frequency sickness presenteeism may result in increased productivity loss through the two mediating effects of fatigue and job burnout. Sickness presenteeism may increase fatigue, promote job burnout, and result in increased productivity loss among Chinese nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Does Seasonal Influenza Related Hospital Occupancy Surge Impact Hospital Staff Sickness Presenteeism and Productivity Costs?

Background—The workload of public hospital staff is heightened during seasonal influenza surges in hospitals serving densely populated cities. Such work environments may subject staff to increased risk of sickness presenteeism. Presenteeism is detrimental to nurses’ health and may lead to downstream productivity loss, resulting in financial costs for hospital organizations. Aims—This study aims to quantify how seasonal influenza hospital occupancy surge impacts nurses’ sickness presenteeism and related productivity costs in high-intensity inpatient metropolitan hospitals. Methods—Full-time nurses in three Hong Kong acute-care hospitals were surveyed. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) was applied to account for clustering in small number of hospitals. Results—A total of 71.3% of nurses reported two or more presenteeism events last year. A 6.8% increase in hospital inpatient occupancy rate was associated with an increase of 19% (1.19, 95% CI: 1.06–1.34) in nurse presenteeism. Presenteeism productivity loss costs between nurses working healthy (USD1983) and worked sick (USD 2008) were not significantly different, while sick leave costs were highest (USD 2703). Conclusion—Presenteeism prevalence is high amongst acute-care hospital nurses and workload increase during influenza flu surge significantly heightened nurse sickness presenteeism. Annual presenteeism productivity loss costs in this study of USD 24,096 were one of the highest reported worldwide. Productivity loss was also considerably high regardless of nurses’ health states, pointing towards other potential risk factors at play. When scheduling nurses to tackle flu surge, managers may want to consider impaired productivity due to staff presenteeism. Further longitudinal research is essential in identifying management modifiable risk factors that impact nurse presenteeism and impairing downstream productivity loss.

LIFESTYLE DISORDERS IN CHILDREN: AN AYURVEDIC OVERVIEW

Lifestyle Disorders (LSD) are common problems among upper-middle and higher society children. Lifestyle has long been associated with the development of many chronic diseases. It affects both genders. WHO has recognized Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), especially diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and chronic lung disease, have everyday lifestyle linked risk factors like lack of physical activity, unhealthy diet and feeding habits and harmful use of alcohol. Worldwide, the current scenario of NCDs is the primary cause of morbidity and mortality, even in young children. According to WHO Report 2004, these account for nearly 60% of deaths and 47% of the global burden of illness. The rise in NCDs is substantially accelerating in most developing countries like India. In India, 53% of the deaths in 2008 were due to NCDs, and cardiovascular disease (CVDs) alone accounted for 24% of deaths (WHO). In 2005 India experienced the highest loss in potentially productive years of life globally, and the leading cause of death was cardiovascular disease. The cumulative loss of national income for India due to NCDs mortality for 2006-2015 was around USD237 billion. By 2030, this productivity loss is estimated to double to 17.9 million years lost. These major NCDs are preventable through effective Ayurvedic interventions by judiciously treating lifestyle-related modifiable risk factors. This review confers the current scenario of NCDs in children and their Ayurvedic Management.

Impacts Of Environment On Building Construction Projects On Woliata Sodo Town

The environmental impacts have become a series of problems in today’s construction environments. Environmental conditions can have an adverse impact on the duration, cost, and quality of construction activities. This study is conducted to describe and point out the impact of the environment on building construction projects in sodo town. The contractor can estimate the Productivity loss due to the impact of environment on construction activity can be either partial or complete: partial loss is generally attributed to reduced labor productivity and work stoppage which interrupt those activities. This study organized by using questioners. The research basically focused on identifying and quantifying different environmental impacts that can affect the construction progresses. As the research result the escalation of construction material price, the availability of construction materials around the area and the involvement of different construction parties and the climatic condition of the environments are the main findings that we have got from our analysis. Generally, this research guides to meet future demands for sustainable environmental development, economic development, expansion of different construction infrastructure for sodo town. Many contractors found in this area fall over different environmental challenges. So to overcome these problems, are some requirements expected from different parties. To minimize those environmental impacts the construction parties should make a detail feasible study about the overall environmental conditions of sodo town before they decided to start up any construction works.

How Does Schema Affect Stress and Productivity at the Workplace?

Maintaining mental health has become a great concern not only for one's well-being, but also for companies' management, while one's personality trait has gained its popularity as a cause. In this article, the authors then investigate how worksite productivity loss is accounted for by stress response accompanied with schema. To this end, the conventional stress model is extended so as to include schema. The pivotal idea of the extended model stands in that both stressor and strain are associated with schema. The result of multiple regression analysis showed that workplace productivity loss is most largely affected by irritability, fatigue, and depression. In addition, the result of hierarchical regression analysis revealed that schema affects stress reaction both directly and indirectly, and that there exists a so-called buffering effect between job control and coworkers' support. These findings suggest that work productivity may be improved by intervention regarding schema or by promoting the buffering effect.

Factors associated with presenteeism in nursing workers

ABSTRACT Objective: to analyze factors associated with presenteeism in nursing workers with sociodemographic variables, health and work conditions, productivity and musculoskeletal symptoms. Methods: this is a cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical study, with 306 nursing workers from a hospital and municipal emergency room in a Brazilian capital. The Stanford Presenteeism Scale, the Work Limitations Questionnaire, the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire and a demographic questionnaire on nursing professionals’ working conditions and health were used. Bivariate and multivariate analyzes were performed, respecting a significance level of 5%. Results: presenteeism was found in 43.8% of professionals and significant associations with CLT work (p=0.002), workplace - Intensive Care Units (p=0.008), physical exercise twice a week (p=0.008), presence of musculoskeletal symptoms, with low back pain being representative (p=0.001). The productivity loss was 8.8. Conclusions: the study confirms a high rate of presenteeism among nursing workers.

Economics of soil erosion: case study of Ukraine

Purpose. The main objective of this paper is (і) to determinate the economic loss due to crop productivity loss caused by soil erosion in Ukraine, and (іі) to present the results of the econometric modeling of soil erosion impact on the efficiency crop production at the regional and district level. Methodology / approach. This study uses the following methods: expert assessments and monographic (for the assessment of economic losses due to crop productivity loss from spreading soil erosion); graphical (for building three-dimensional graphs); econometric modeling (to develop a mathematical model of the dependence of the gross crop production and income from sales per 100 hectares from the share of eroded arable land in its total area and production costs in crop industry per 100 hectares); abstract-and-logical (for generalization of the research results). To solve the assigned tasks, linear and quadratic econometric models (production functions) were developed using a dataset (і) from 168 observations (on the example of Ukrainian regions for 2010–2016) and (ii) from 189 observations (on the example of districts of Kharkiv region for 2010–2016). This study was conducted in order to test the hypothesis that the increase in the area of eroded arable land has a negative effect on the gross output of crop production. Results. Our expert assessment of economic losses due to crop productivity loss from spread of soil erosion on agricultural land in Ukraine is 224 mln USD. The obtained results confirm the hypothesis about the negative relationship between gross crop output and the level of land erosion. The obtained data confirm that an increase in the area of eroded arable land by 1 % leads to a decrease in the gross output of crop production by 0.20 % per 100 hectares of agricultural land in total, and in the third group of the studied subjects (the share of eroded arable land in their total area is more than 50 %) – by 0.61 %, respectively. Originality / scientific novelty. For the first time, linear and nonlinear (quadratic) econometric models were developed, which made it possible to carry out quantitative assessment of the impact of the soil erosion and the financial support (production costs in crop industry) per hectare on the formation of the financial results (gross crop output and income) of business entities in Ukrainian agriculture. The provision on the economics of soil erosion was further developed in terms of expert assessment of losses from this type of degradation and confirmation of the effect of the economic law of diminishing returns, which should be taken into account when developing measures for sustainable land management. Practical value / implications. The main results of the study can be used for the development, substantiation and implementation of soil protection measures for the sustainable use of agricultural land and/or to informed decision-making at different levels of management concerning restoration of eroded land.

The Impact of Hypoglycemia on Productivity Loss and Utility in Type 2 Diabetes Patients Treated with Insulin in Real-World Canadian Practice: Protocol for a Prospective Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) imposes a significant burden, with its increasing prevalence and life-threatening complications. In patients not achieving glycemic targets on oral antidiabetic drugs, initiation of insulin is recommended. However, a serious concern about insulin is drug-induced hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia is known to affect quality of life and healthcare resource utilization. However, health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) data for economic modeling are limited, particularly in terms of utility values and productivity losses. OBJECTIVE The aim of this real-world prospective study is to assess the impact of hypoglycemia on productivity and utility in insulin-treated T2DM adults from Ontario and Quebec (Canada). METHODS This noninterventional, multicenter, 3-month prospective study will recruit patients from four medical clinics and two endocrinology/diabetes clinics. Patients will be identified using appointment lists, and enrolled through consecutive sampling during routinely scheduled consultations. To be eligible, patients must be ≥18 years of age, diagnosed with T2DM, and treated with insulin. Utility and productivity will be collected using the EQ-5D-5L questionnaire and the iMTA Productivity Cost Questionnaire (iPCQ), respectively. Questionnaires will be completed at 4, 8 and 12 weeks after recruitment. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) models will be used to investigate productivity losses and utility decrements associated with incident hypoglycemic events while controlling for individual patient characteristics. A total of 500 patients will be enrolled to ensure precision of HEOR estimates. RESULTS This study is designed to fill a gap in the Canadian evidence on the impact of hypoglycemia on HEOR outcomes. More specifically, it will generate productivity and utility inputs for economic modeling in T2DM. CONCLUSIONS Insulin therapies are expensive, and hypoglycemia is a significant component of economic evaluations. Robust HEOR data may help health technology assessment (HTA) agencies in future reimbursement decision making.

Online supervised versus workplace corrective exercises for upper crossed syndrome: a protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background and objective Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) including upper crossed syndrome (UCS) are considered as the leading cause of work-related issues worldwide among office workers. Therefore, the present study aims to evaluate the effect of workplace-based versus online-supervised home-based corrective exercises among office workers with UCS. Methods and design To this end, 45 subjects within the age range of 30–45 years are randomly assigned to three groups in the present parallel-group, randomized control trial using a pretest-posttest design. These groups include the subjects who receive online-supervised exercise and workplace exercise containing three sessions of intervention for 8 weeks and the control group receives no intervention while performing routine activities. The primary outcome variables are neck-shoulder pain (NSP) and consequent sick leave due to NSP, followed by alignment, workability, and the surface electromyography of upper, middle, and lower trapezius (UT, MT, and LT), sternocleidomastoid (SCM), and serratus anterior (SA) as the secondary variables. Discussion The present study seeks to assess the effect of workplace versus online-supervised corrective exercise interventions among 45 office workers suffering from UCS. It is expected to improve and reduce the related symptoms including postural malalignment and imbalance muscles after 8 weeks of corrective exercises. If effective, the findings may lead to adherence and work performance among the office workers, and individuals subjected to UCS can use the benefits of an online-supervised intervention. In addition, the findings may be useful in different workplaces as the evidence for employers to benefit from the reduction in the related costs and side effects of work-related neck/shoulder disorders including work disability, productivity loss, time expense, social insurance, work absenteeism, and treatment costs. Finally, clinicians and corrective exercise therapists can consider it as a clinical based-evidence intervention for their further actions. Trial registration Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials IRCT20200729048249N1. Registered on 5 October 2020 (https://en.irct.ir/user/trial/49992/view)