Work - Volume 77, issue 1

Authors: Genc, Ezgi | Pirincci, Edibe

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Internet addiction and physical inactivity are often a major public health problem. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the relationship between internet addiction (IA) and physical activity (PA) levels of university students in a province in eastern Turkey. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 638 students. Internet Addiction Test (IAT), and International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) were administered. Chi-square, independent sample t -test, correlation analysis, one-way analysis of variance tests (ANOVA), Tukey HSD test, and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed. RESULTS: 64.6% of the participants were female, with a mean age …of 20.4±2.4 and a mean body mass index (BMI) of 22.3±3.5. 83.4% of the participants were identified as those asymptomatic, 15.2% showed limited symptoms, and 1.4% were pathological internet users according to IAT. A statistically significant difference was found between IAT scores and gender, mother’s education level, father’s education level, academic success, smoking status, and alcohol use (p  < 0.05). According to IPAQ scores, 28.1% of the students were inactive, 56.3% were moderate PA and 15.7% had vigorous PA levels. IPAQ total scores of male participants, smokers, and participants with exercise habits were found to be significantly higher (p  < 0.05). The mean score IAT and IPAQ was found to be 30.9±18.9 and 1697.7±1847.0. A negative, significant correlation was found between students’ PA and IA levels (p  < 0.01). CONCLUSION: It has been observed that IA negatively affects PA. Seminars, conferences, and panels on the internet and physical activity should be organized for university students. Show more

Keywords: Body mass index, cross-sectional study, exercise, gender, habits, smoking

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-230015

Citation: Work, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 243-252, 2024

Authors: Demirel, Yüksel | Çağatay, Hüseyin Tolga | Ertuğrul, Bekir | Başaran, Esin | Salimoğlu, Serap

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: A sense of compassion has a core importance in health service delivery. Research on the psychological impact of being compassionate on healthcare workers is limited. OBJECTIVE: This research aims to examine the effect of compassion levels of healthcare workers on their psychological well-being. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional and descriptive study. The population of the research consists of health personnel working throughout Ankara, the capital. The study was carried out with 414 healthcare workers. A personal information form, compassion scale and psychological well-being scale were used in the research questionnaire. …RESULTS: A positive and significant relationship was found between compassion and psychological well-being scores. It was determined that compassion positively affected psychological well-being levels. The level of compassion showed that there was a significant difference between the groups according to the variables of gender, family structure, job satisfaction and whether they would choose the same profession again. The level of psychological well-being was found to be significantly different between the groups in education, job satisfaction and making the same profession choice again. CONCLUSION: It is a professional requirement that health professionals in patient care have a sense of compassion and reflect this feeling in their conduct. Research shows that the greater the compassion, the higher the psychological well-being. Therefore, undertaking training initiatives to make healthcare workers more compassionate can contribute to patient care and at the same time to the psychological well-being of healthcare workers. Show more

Keywords: Healthcare personnel, health status, health improvement, mental health, mental healing, mental hygiene

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-230035

Citation: Work, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 253-262, 2024

Authors: Marin-Farrona, Maria | Wipfli, Brad | Thosar, Saurabh S. | García-Unanue, Jorge | Gallardo, Leonor | Felipe, Jose Luis | López-Fernández, Jorge

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Active break programs at the workplace are a promising initiative for increasing workers' physical activity (PA) levels, health, work-ability (WA), and social relationship. OBJECTIVE: To determine the impact of an Active Breaks workplace program based on Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) aligned with Behavior Change Techniques (BCT) on PA levels, cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), WA, and social relationships among university workers. METHODS: #UCLMuévete is a quasi-experimental, 12-week intervention designed according to the TREND and TIDieR-PHP checklists. Sixty-nine university workers were recruited and placed into 17 teams of 3 to 5 people. Participants were …instructed to take a 20-min active break every working day (walking, cycling, and functional training). The following variables were measured before and after the 12-week intervention: (1) Amount of PA with accelerometers, (2) CRF through the 6 Min-Walking Test (m), (3) Body composition (fat mass (gr), muscle mass (gr), and bone mineral content (g/cm3) through densitometry), (4) Stress with the BodyGuard2 device, (5) WA through Work Ability Index (WAI), and (6) Social relationships through an ad-hoc questionnaire. Part-time workers, pregnant women, and workers with physical disability were excluded. RESULTS: Significant improvements were observed in the amount of daily moderate-to-vigorous PA (Difference (Dif)., women +8.05 and men +12.31 minutes; p  < 0.05; ES = 0.224; 0.379), CRF (Dif., women +52.98 and men +25.53 meters; p  < 0.05; ES = 0.578; 0.209), and (Dif., women +2.16 and men +2.39; p  < 0.05; ES = 0.150; 0.177). No significant changes were observed in body composition and stress. CONCLUSION: 20 min/day of aerobic and strength active breaks, based on SCT aligned to BCTs, improves university workers’ amount of PA, CRF, WAI, and social relationships. Show more

Keywords: Employees, Bandura’s theory, behavior change techniques, mHealth, exercise

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-230062

Citation: Work, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 263-273, 2024

Authors: O’Loghlen, Jessica | Geraghty, Timothy | Kendall, Melissa | Nielsen, Mandy | Jones, Rachel | McLennan, Vanette | Watter, Kerrin | Ownsworth, Tamara

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Return-to-work (RTW) is often viewed as an important outcome following acquired brain injury (ABI) and spinal cord injury (SCI), although not all individuals have vocational goals and many experience barriers to RTW. OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the relationship between RTW and psychosocial functioning at 12-months post-discharge after ABI and SCI and examined patterns of RTW according to perceived need for and receipt of vocational support. METHODS: A file audit was conducted for 69 participants with ABI (n  = 44) and SCI (n  = 25). Data on employment status and perceived vocational support at 3- …and 12-months post-discharge, home and community participation, psychological distress, and health-related quality of life were extracted. RESULTS: Individuals in paid employment at 12-months post-discharge (22%, n  = 15) reported significantly better psychosocial functioning at this timepoint compared to those not employed (78%; n  = 54). For those not employed, three subgroups were identified: 1) Did not perceive the need for or receive vocational support (50%; n  = 27); 2) Perceived vocational support needs were unmet (19%; n  = 10); and 3) Perceived and received vocational support (31%; n  = 17). Psychological distress was highest for those who perceived and received vocational support but were not employed. CONCLUSION: RTW was associated with better psychosocial functioning after acquired neurological injury. The findings highlight the need for clinicians to explore and revisit individuals’ perceived need for and preferences for vocational support and monitor the psychological well-being of those with RTW goals that are not yet successful. Show more

Keywords: Acquired neurological injury, work re-integration, employment outcome, psychosocial functioning, psychological well-being

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-230090

Citation: Work, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 275-293, 2024

Authors: Langove, Naseebullah | Javaid, Muhammad Umair | Ayyasamy, Ramesh Kumar | Ibikunle, Afeez Kayode | Sabir, Asrar Ahmed

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Fear of losing psychological resources can lead to stress, impacting psychological health and behavioral outcomes like burnout, absenteeism, service sabotage, and turnover. OBJECTIVE: The study examined the impact of job stressors (time pressure, role ambiguity, role conflict) on employee well-being and turnover intentions. The study also investigated the mediating role of employee well-being between job stressors and turnover intention based on the conservation of resources (COR) theory. METHODS: Data from 396 IT executives in Malaysian IT firms were analyzed using the Partial Least Squares - Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique. RESULTS: Results confirmed …a significant negative correlation between time pressure (–0.296), role ambiguity (–0.423), role conflict (–0.104), and employee well-being. Similarly, employee well-being showed a significant negative relationship with turnover intentions (–0.410). The mediation analysis revealed that employee well-being mediates the relationship between time pressure (0.121), role ambiguity (0.173), role conflict (0.043), and turnover intentions. CONCLUSION: This paper aims to manifest the importance of designing employee well-being policies by firms to retain employees. Findings reflect the role of the managerial approach towards ensuring employee well-being for employee retention, thereby reducing recruitment and re-training costs. Show more

Keywords: Time pressure, role ambiguity, role conflict, employee satisfaction

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-230103

Citation: Work, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 295-305, 2024

Authors: Cannedy, Shay | McCoy, Matthew | Oishi, Kristina | Canelo, Ismelda | Hamilton, Alison B. | Olmos-Ochoa, Tanya T.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: The impact of patient aggression on primary health care employees is underexplored, yet imperative to address, given high rates of burnout. OBJECTIVE: We qualitatively explore perceptions of patient aggression among staff in women’s health primary care at the Veterans Health Administration (VA). Our objective is to identify coping strategies that staf devised in response to aggressive behavior. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 60 VA women’s health primary care employees in 2021 and 2022. Informed by the Job Demands-Resources theoretical model, we used rapid qualitative analysis to identify themes related to patient aggression and employee …coping strategies. RESULTS: Disruptive behaviors reported by participants included verbal and physical aggression. Staff cited disruptive patient behavior as emotionally draining and perceived a lack of consequences for low-level aggression. Respondents used coping strategies in response to patient aggression at three time points: before, during, and after a negative interaction. At each point, support from team members emerged as a dominant coping mechanism, as well as rapport-building with patients. CONCLUSION: Patient aggression can negatively impact the work experiences of primary care employees. At VA, women’s health primary care staff have devised multiple strategies to cope with these interactions. However, the ability to effectively prevent and manage patient aggression is limited by the lack of meaningful repercussions for aggression at the organizational level, which has important implications for employee well-being and retention. Retention of women’s health employees in VA is critical given the need for a highly specialized workforce to address the complex health needs of women veterans. Show more

Keywords: Workplace violence, incivility, workforce, veterans, delivery of health care

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-230157

Citation: Work, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 307-315, 2024

Authors: Béguin, Pascal | Cerf, Marianne

Article Type: Editorial

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-236021

Citation: Work, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 317-320, 2024

Authors: Heddad, Nadia | Biquand, Sylvain

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: There are several characteristics of working in an urban environment that challenge the usual forms of work prescription. OBJECTIVE: This is a case study on the work of gardeners in an urban setting in the north of Paris. This paper develops the notion of territory, which we define as a system that is locally rooted in an open environment through the situated actions of gardeners’ work. As the employees do their work in an outside environment, interactions in real-life situations are beyond the control of work organization. City gardeners’ work is carried out in a green, living …and human environment. METHODS: We conducted detailed open observations in a town’s green zones. These were complemented by individual interviews in work situations and by collective interviews within the boundaries of the municipality. RESULTS: We use the notion of territory to highlight the particularity of work within organizations where the work environment cannot be limited to the space inside their walls. The gardeners’ work makes it possible to link residents and passers-by (on foot or in vehicles) with the town’s green spaces (micro-ecosystems). Their work consists in connecting the different expectations and needs of the various life forms: the human beings (with a variety of lifestyles), as well as the plants, insects and animals. CONCLUSION: The particularities of working in an open environment create complex forms of prescription. The notion of territory, rarely used in ergonomics, proves to be fruitful for considering work in these contexts. Show more

Keywords: Work activity, situated action, forms of prescription, living system, territory

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-220378

Citation: Work, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 321-330, 2024

Authors: Robert, Jeanne-Martine | Béguin, Pascal

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: A huge amount of ergonomic research has been carried out in companies. However, territory is now becoming a new frontier for decision-making during design. OBJECTIVE: This article aims to examine how territorial scale impacts the design process of a work system. METHODS: Two types of methods were used. First, we analyzed and defined what constitutes a territorialized work system. On this basis we conducted a design project for the re-conception of a territorialized work system with the linden tree. RESULTS: It is argued that a “territorialized work system” is not limited to its …productive dimensions; it engages in a “making of a milieu” which consists of matching the work system with a range of dimensions that make life possible within the territory. CONCLUSION: The territorial aspect of running a design project thus relates to three dimensions: the systemic dimension of the system to be designed, the organization of the design project itself, and the nature of the object to be designed: the possibility of making a milieu, i.e. of being able to live in the territory. Show more

Keywords: Design, territory, activity, milieu

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-220349

Citation: Work, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 331-342, 2024

Authors: Cerf, Marianne | Le Bail, Chloé | Boccara, Vincent | Loyce, Chantal

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Few ergonomics studies have explored the work required to implement territorialized public policies. OBJECTIVE: To identify key challenges for ergonomists who analyse and support intermediation work taking place in the design and implementation of a Territorial Food Project or TFP (a public policy device). METHODS: We adapted a framework developed in the field of political sociology. The analysis focuses on two scales to identify key characteristics of intermediation work: the agri-urban area as delimited and targeted by the TFP; and the farm and its relationships to food systems. To capture how intermediation work articulates prescription …and action, we studied first the work carried out by the actors to use a public policy device such as TFP, and second the evolving farming work systems’ connections to food systems and how they are supported by various actors. RESULTS: Intermediation work is spread across a wide diversity of actors. Coordination at governance level aims to allocate resources among institutional actors and to check the progress of the elaborated action plan. Coordination at operational level, which is meant to support farming work system dynamics or to implement the action plan, focuses on fostering the emergence of initiatives but seems to lack a shared vision and time availability. CONCLUSION: We identify two main challenges: to further develop a framework for analysing the intermediation work occurring in a multi-scale and territorial perspective; and to develop new intervention methods so that ergonomists can take part in and support such intermediation work. Show more

Keywords: Food policy, local food systems, facilitation, peri-urban agriculture, ergonomic intervention

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-220298

Citation: Work, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 343-357, 2024

Authors: Xavier, Amanda Fernandes | Valle, William Azalim do | de Souza, Marcelo Alves | Duarte, Francisco José de Castro Moura | Lima, Francisco de Paula Antunes

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: This article discusses expanded governance of territorial issues as the basis for a sustainable way of producing and commercializing, as well as the relevance of work analysis within this governance. This discussion is developed from the Functionality and Cooperation Economy approach and from Brazilian experiences of organic food production and community-based solid waste management. OBJECTIVE: To identify and analyze the relationship between territorial issues and work activities in initiatives that seek territorial solutions for food and waste management in order to reflect on a sustainable economic transition and its challenges. METHODS: This article presents a …reflection, a posteriori , concerning the follow-up of two initiatives that seek a sustainable economy and that, facing territorial issues, adopted different economic strategies. The field of research, by which the intended reflections are guided, originated from two intervention projects conducted by two different research/intervention groups. RESULTS: Our study highlights how the central focus on the effects of work in a territory can support the development of reflexivity and, consequently, the production of transversal cooperation and the sharing of material and immaterial resources, thereby leading to multifunctional territorial solutions. CONCLUSION: This study presents how the co-construction of multifunctional territorial solutions, involving cooperation among different actors, can be developed by an analysis of the respective activities involved. This analysis confers centrality to real work in order to feed the governance devices and enable the development of relationships of trust, necessary for living and producing in harmony, along with the construction of conventions and dynamic cooperation. Show more

Keywords: Functional and cooperative economy, work activities, territorial issues, territorial solutions

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-220376

Citation: Work, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 359-375, 2024

Authors: Boudra, Leïla | Souza, Marcelo | Varella, Cinthia | Béguin, Pascal | Lima, Francisco de Paula Antunes

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Waste production and management from residents and collection for sorting are systems heavily dependent on territorial dimensions. Ergonomic research needs to better integrate such territorial determinants to improve work conditions and design sustainable work systems. OBJECTIVE: Through studies in France and Brazil, this paper analyzes the territorial relations that raise work systems’ sustainability challenges for materials recovery facilities (MRFs) and waste management in both countries and examines the links between work activity and territory in MRFs. METHODS: Both studies were based on the principles of activity-oriented ergonomics and used analyses of work activity and sociotechnical …systems. The French study focused on interventions conducted over a 42-month period in five MRFs. The Brazilian study was based on a 20-month longitudinal qualitative and quantitative study. RESULTS: In this paper, we argue that territory is a key determining factor in waste production and work. Notably, the consumption patterns of residents and the economic flows within a geographic space determine the waste composition; and the territorially specified public policies, which define technical and social dimensions of waste collection and sorting. However, the territorial dimensions of waste are poorly considered in facility design. Workers’ health and sorting system performance are thus affected and negatively compromising plant performance. CONCLUSION: The territory appears as a blind spot in the design of work systems. One of the challenges is to create interfaces and devices that could help to integrate better human activity and waste territorialized anchorage, in a multilevel organization, from local communities to the global recycling chains. Show more

Keywords: Sustainable development, territory, waste management, ergonomics

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-220362

Citation: Work, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 377-389, 2024

Authors: Cunha, Liliana | Lacomblez, Marianne

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: BACKGROUND: The heuristic potential of work activity-focused territory analyses has yet to be explored in depth. Instead of viewing territories as a product of their actors, the prevailing approaches rely on statistical indicators to view them “from above”. OBJECTIVE: To understand how work activity acts upon a territory and transforms it, and to discuss what the main indicators used to characterize territories reveal and conceal. METHODS: Case studies led on two territories, each in a different industry. One on transportation in a sparsely populated “low density” area; the other in an industrial district, focusing on its …“high activity rate” cork industry. In the first case, work activity analyses were led with drivers and mobility designers, including systematic observations and interviews, in the context of an endeavour to redesign a local transport network. In the second case, work activity analyses led among cork stopper choosers were followed with an integrative literature review of indicators about the cork industry and its health impacts. RESULTS: This territory analysis highlights: (i) traces of bus drivers’ work activity on the mitigation of inequalities in access to public transportation; (ii) “absent indicators” regarding cork choosers’ work activity and its health impacts, stressing the existence of a development agenda for this territory focused on cork processing rather than on those who perform it. CONCLUSION: Our analysis of territorialization processes through the lens of work activity signposts a path for research-action seeking to associate territorial development with improvements in the working conditions of citizen workers. Show more

Keywords: Activity-centred ergonomics, territorialization processes, absent indicators, activity traces, boundary objects

DOI: 10.3233/WOR-220374

Citation: Work, vol. 77, no. 1, pp. 391-404, 2024