Mental Demands at the Workplace-Are Information Load, Time Control, and Exploration Associated With Depressiveness?

Behind the times? Associations of working-time autonomy with health-related and occupational outcomes in health care personnel- a latent profile analysis

BACKGROUND

In the light of personnel shortage, the health care sector is facing the challenge to combine increasing employees' as well as patients' needs. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between working-time autonomy and health-related (fatigue, psychosomatic complaints and work ability), as well as occupational outcomes (job satisfaction and turnover intention) in a large sample of health care employees.

METHOD

Based on data of the BauA-Working Time survey, a sample of n = 1,093 employees working in the health care sector was analysed. Outcomes were assessed by the German Fatigue Scale, the Work Ability-Index and single-item measurements. Besides descriptive analyses, latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to determine clusters of employees based on working-time autonomy. Subsequently, regression analyses have been conducted to examine the association between autonomy clusters with health-related and occupational outcomes, controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and employment status.

RESULTS

LPA revealed that a three-cluster model was most suitable: high autonomy (cluster 1), medium autonomy (cluster 2) and low autonomy (cluster 3). The extracted profiles of working-time autonomy differed significantly in terms of sociodemographic and occupational characteristics, but not in terms of average working hours per week or monthly household income. The multivariate regression analysis revealed that being in the low-autonomy cluster was associated with more psychosomatic health complaints (IRR: 1.427, p = 0.008), lower work ability (OR 0.339, p < 0.001), as well as less job satisfaction (OR 0.216, p < 0.001).

DISCUSSION

Overall, the analyses indicate that it is crucial to prospectively consider working-time autonomy as an important factor of satisfaction, well-being and turnover intention in health care employees.

Perceived stress of mental demands at work, objective stress and resilience - an analysis of the LIFE-Adult-study

BACKGROUND

So far, previous research suggests positive effects of mental demands at the workplace. However, it may depend on how stressfull these demands are perceived on an individual level.

OBJECTIVE

The aim was to build on previous research by investigating how mental demands are related to stress, overload, and work discontent and whether this relationship is mediated by individuals resources, such as resilience.

METHOD

A sub-sample of the LIFE Adult Cohort (n = 480) was asked to answer questions on sociodemographic characteristics, objective stress (using the Trier Inventory of Chronic Stress (TICS)), and perceptions of stress with regard to verbal and executive mental demands at work.

RESULTS

According to generalized linear regression models, higher verbal as well as executive mental demands were associated with higher levels of chronic stress, work overload and discontent. Higher levels of resilience were associated with lower levels of these outcomes. Analyses regarding interaction effects revealed that the interaction between resilience and perceived stress of verbal mental demands was significant only in terms of work overload.

CONCLUSION

Higher perceived stressfulness of mental demands was associated with higher chronic stress, work overload and work discontent. Therefore, mental demands should be targeted by occupational interventions that aim to improve job conditions and employees' overall well-being. Besides resilience, other potential influencers or personal resources should be focused on in future studies to develop interventions.