Worker psychological health is a significant global imperative which requires national policy action and stakeholder engagement. While national policy is a critical lever for improving worker ...psychological health, some countries are more progressive than others in relation to policy development and/or implementation. At the Joint Congress of the International Commission on Occupational Health, Scientific Committee on Work Organization and Psychosocial Factors and the Asia Pacific Academy for Psychosocial Factors Work in Tokyo (September 2023), a Global Roundtable was designed to initiate international dialogue and knowledge exchange regarding relevant national policy approaches. The Global Roundtable involved experts from diverse regions alongside an engaged audience of congress attendees and facilitators. Qualitative data were analysed against the five components of the National Policy Index tool, comprising policy priority, specific laws, nation-wide initiatives, sector-oriented initiatives, national survey and/or studies. Analysis revealed that while work-related psychological health is a policy priority across many countries, at the same time, there are global gaps in both legislation specificity and active regulation across different countries. For future policy development across countries, it will be beneficial to continue and deepen international discourse and for countries to share their approaches with others.
Ce travail s’intéresse à la prise en compte des RPS dans le management de 16 chefs de service exerçants en protection de l’enfance sur le territoire Haut-rhinois. Nous avons observé des impacts ...multiples et variables en fonction du chef de service, de sa conception des RPS et de son rôle de manager. Ce travail soulève des questions sur la préparation, la formation et l’accompagnement des chefs de service, mais également sur les freins et empêchements à une résolution optimale des RPS, et souligne l’importance de l’analyse réflexive et des espaces collectifs de cette réflexivité.
This work examines the impact of taking Psychosocial Risks into account with regard to the management methods of 16 department heads working in the Haut-Rhin region. These impacts are multiple and vary depending on the department head, his relationship with Psychosocial Risks and his intervention context. This work raises points of correlation between the different situations exposed: transfer of skills from the function of social worker to the function of head of service but also the importance of reflective analysis and the conditions that are essential to its existence.
The emergency situation caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected different facets of society. Although much of the attention is focused on the health sector, other sectors such as ...education have also experienced profound transformations and impacts. This sector is usually highly affected by psychosocial risks, and this could be aggravated during the current health emergency. Psychosocial risks may cause health problems, lack of motivation, and a decrease of effectiveness at work, which in turn affect the quality of teaching. Despite their importance, there are hardly any studies that analyze psychosocial risks of non-university teachers during a health emergency such as that caused by COVID-19.
The aim of this study was to analyze the perception of COVID-19 and the psychosocial risks of non-university teachers comparing Spain and Mexico during the state of alarm caused by COVID-19.
Data were collected from 421 non-university teachers (80.2% women; 56.3% from Mexico, 43.7% from Spain) aged 24-60 (
= 39.32,
= 10.21)
a self-completed questionnaire during the pandemic from March to April 2020.
Data analysis suggests that inequity is the most important risk, followed by work overload. Teachers appear to be moderately satisfied with the information on COVID-19 and the measures taken, while their satisfaction with the available resources is lower. When comparing the two countries, significant differences can be observed in every risk considered except for social support, with lower levels in Mexican teachers compared to Spanish ones. In the case of the perception of COVID-19 and its impact, the perception in general of levels of information, measures, and resources is better among Mexican teachers than among Spanish ones, who present higher scores of the impact of the health emergency.
The results underline the importance of the professional's perception of resources during a health emergency, which could prevent to some extent burnout and possible alterations associated with it. The measures taken by the responsible entities and the provision of information do affect teachers not only directly but also indirectly by making them more vulnerable to psychosocial risks that could affect their health and professional performance, thus affecting students as well.
Introduction
Psychosocial risks (PSR) represent a new scourge of risks at work. The direct links between these risks and occupational accidents (OA) are not well documented, but some work restraints ...such as time pressure are common factors for both stress and accidents.
Objectives
To establish a relationship between different PSR perceived by health staff and the occurrence of OA.
Methods
Cross-sectional study conducted among staff working at Habib Bourguiba Hospital in Sfax from 1st January to 31 March 2015. The evaluation of mental health was performed by using the validated French version of questionnaire KARASEK.
Results
The study involved 326 care staff (115 men and 211 women). The average age was 36 years old. The participants were mainly nurses (30.6%) and trainee physicians (35.6%). Blood exposure accidents were predominant (66.1% of cases) and were associated with high psychological demands at work with OR = 2.539 (95% CI 1.037 - 6.219). Health care workers had a high psychological demand in 85.3% and a low latitude in 78.8% of cases. According to the Karasek model, tense employees accounted for 68.7% and assets 16.6%. OAs occurring during care were associated with night work and working in the emergency and resuscitation department (OR = 5,772 (95% CI 1,227-27,146 and OR = 5,778 (95% CI 1,702 -19,619) respectively).
Conclusions
The prevention of OA goes through the management of PSR, which remains a major concern for health and safety workers at work via the application of preventive strategies based on in-depth analysis of work situations.
This paper examines the impact of work in a pandemic context on workers' mental health. Psychosocial risks have always been a challenging aspect of workplace health and safety practices. Moreover, ...the COVID-19 pandemic has affected workplaces in all sectors causing unexpected changes in work organization and working conditions, leading to the emergence of new psychosocial risks for health and wellbeing of workers. This mini-review aims to identify the main work stressors during pandemic period and related mental health problems to suggest recommendations and adjust health and safety practices regarding workplace mental health. A literature search has been performed using MEDLINE/PubMed, ResearchGate and Google Scholar databases, selecting articles focusing on work-related stressors and workers' mental health problems related to the pandemic. Specific psychosocial risks have been identified, including fear of contagion, telework-related risks, isolation and stigmatization, rapid digitalization demands, job insecurity, elevated risk of violence at work or home, and work-life imbalance, among others. All those risks can lead to elevated levels of stress among workers and affect their mental health and wellbeing, especially in terms of psychological distress, anxiety, and depression. As one of the social determinants of health, the workplace has an important and moderating role in workers' health. Therefore, in the pandemic context more than ever health protection practices at the workplace should be devoted to mental health problems. Recommendations provided in this study are expected to contribute to workplace practices to preserve and promote workers' mental health.
The aim of the study was to determine the most important occupational psychosocial risk factors for mental health in physician assistants and paramedics during the pandemic of COVID-19. The survey ...was conducted using 29 questions on psychosocial risks related to the organization of work and anti-epidemic measures, interpersonal relations at work, professional and personal characteristics. For assessment of mental health disorders the self-report scale DASS-21 was used, with 21 items on symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. The survey was conducted in October 2022 with a total of 68 physician assistants and paramedics from inpatient, outpatient and emergency medical care. Psychosocial factors with the greatest risk frequency were “absence of adequate additional training in epidemic conditions”, “uncertainty in the anti-epidemic measures applied”, and “change of workplace, work tasks and organization of work without asking the opinion of workers”. At a significant frequency of risk were also worries about patients’ life and health, personal, and family members’ life and health. The last two factors correlated with the severity of depression, anxiety and stress. Looking at the interpersonal relations at work, the most problematic were “absence of recognition and encouragement for a job well done” and “inability to freely discuss problems and make decisions in the work team”. Professional psychosocial risk factors with the highest frequency were “insufficient professional experience with infectious patients”, “very high workload during the wave of COVID-19” and “lack of job satisfaction”. These three factors correlated significantly with levels of depression, anxiety and stress.
Flexible work arrangements have become increasingly popular, driven by the widespread adoption of digital technologies in the workplace because of the pandemic. However, there is a scarcity of ...studies concerning remote work, especially related to technical-administrative staff (TAS) in academia. Therefore, the current study, adopting the Job Demands-Resources model, aimed to investigate the relationships between remote working self-efficacy, organizational support, techno-complexity, mental well-being, and job performance among TAS during remote working.
A total of 373 individuals from TAS of a large Italian university participated in this study by completing a self-report questionnaire.
The findings showed positive and significant relationships between remote self-efficacy and job satisfaction as well as between such a perceived efficacy and mental well-being. Perceived support from supervisors acted as a protective factor against techno-complexity. In contrast, perceived support from colleagues emerged as able to promote well-being and job satisfaction. In addition, the latter was positively associated with well-being. Finally, individual job performance was positively affected by job satisfaction and negatively by techno-complexity.
This study highlights the need for interventions to support TAS in remote working environments by leveraging employees' self-efficacy as a key factor in reducing stress related to new technologies as well as enhancing well-being, job satisfaction, and, in turn, their performance.
Since the end of the 1990s, call and contact centres in Portugal have been dealing with issues not only related to labor rights but also to workplace safety and health. With the outbreak of the ...COVID-19 pandemic, these locations became hotspots for outbreaks of the virus. Class inequalities were aggravated by the demarcation between essential and non-essential workers. After a state of emergency was formally declared, most call and contact centre operators moved to teleworking, suffering a significant loss of labor rights and an increase in pervasive control and surveillance, along with other psychosocial risks. Between March 2020 and May 2022, using a netnographic approach, in-depth interviews were conducted with call and contact centre operators and union members in Portugal to analyze the impacts of the pandemic and the transition to teleworking.
Objective. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of psychosocial risks based on the demographic variables of sex, age, and seniority, on the perception of workplace violence in a ...group of workers from Spanish companies. Methods. a total of 22 Spanish companies were analysed between 2016 and 2018 with a total sample of 26741 people using the FPSICO 3.1 psychosocial assessment method and divided into demographic groups of sex, age, and seniority for subsequent comparison of means and regression analysis. Results. The results confirm the relationship between psychosocial risks and the perception of workplace violence. The analysesby demographic variables position the group of men as the group with the highest perception of workplace violence, except for discrimination, where it was higher in the group of women. The results confirm that the perception of workplace violence increases significantly with age and seniority in the company. Conclusions. workplace violence is one of the most worrying risk factors today and it is necessary to better understand what risk factors can favour its appearance or its differentiated behaviour according to sex, age, or seniority. This can allow us to develop planned strategies to control this risk and focus on specific demographic groups.
Nurses are exposed to psychosocial risks that can affect both psychological and physical health through stress. Prolonged stress at work can lead to burnout syndrome. An essential protective factor ...against psychosocial risks is emotional intelligence, which has been related to physical and psychological health, job satisfaction, increased job commitment, and burnout reduction. The present study aimed to analyze the effect of psychosocial risks and emotional intelligence on nurses' health, well-being, burnout level, and job satisfaction during the rise and main peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. It is a cross-sectional study conducted on a convenience sample of 125 Spanish nurses. Multiple hierarchical linear regression models were calculated considering emotional intelligence levels, psychosocial demand factors (interpersonal conflict, lack of organizational justice, role conflict, and workload), social support and emotional work on burnout, job satisfaction, and nurses' health. Finally, the moderating effect of emotional intelligence levels, psychosocial factors, social support, and emotional work on burnout, job satisfaction, and nurses' health was calculated. Overall, this research data points to a protective effect of emotional intelligence against the adverse effects of psychosocial risks such as burnout, psychosomatic complaints, and a favorable effect on job satisfaction.
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