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Work-related thoughts during off-job time have been studied extensively in occupational health psychology and related fields. We provide a focused review of the research on overcommitment-a component within the effort-reward imbalance model-and aim to connect this line of research to the most commonly studied aspects of work-related rumination. Drawing on this integrative review, we analyze survey data on ten facets of work-related rumination, namely (1) overcommitment, (2) psychological detachment, (3) affective rumination, (4) problem-solving pondering, (5) positive work reflection, (6) negative work reflection, (7) distraction, (8) cognitive irritation, (9) emotional irritation, and (10) inability to recover. First, we apply exploratory factor analysis to self-reported survey data from 357 employees to calibrate overcommitment items and to position overcommitment within the nomological net of work-related rumination constructs. Second, we apply confirmatory factor analysis to self-reported survey data from 388 employees to provide a more specific test of uniqueness vs. overlap among these constructs. Third, we apply relative weight analysis to assess the unique criterion-related validity of each work-related rumination facet regarding (1) physical fatigue, (2) cognitive fatigue, (3) emotional fatigue, (4) burnout, (5) psychosomatic complaints, and (6) satisfaction with life. Our results suggest that several measures of work-related rumination (e.g., overcommitment and cognitive irritation) can be used interchangeably. Emotional irritation and affective rumination emerge as the strongest unique predictors of fatigue, burnout, psychosomatic complaints, and satisfaction with life. Our study is intended to assist researchers in making informed decisions on selecting scales for their research and paves the way for integrating research on the effort-reward imbalance and work-related rumination.

Although job-related work environment studies found associations to workplace bullying perpetration, little work with longitudinal designs has been conducted on broader organizational measures, which may help design effective interventions for perpetration. Using a three-wave longitudinal design and drawing on Conservation of Resources Theory, we investigated whether organizational trust and justice predicted perpetration six months later. The sample consisted of 2447 employees from Spain and Turkey from various industries, such as services, manufacturing, and education. We also investigated whether physical and psychological health explained the relationship between organizational trust, justice, and perpetration. The results indicated that, in three months, organizational justice negatively predicted psychological and physical health deterioration, while unexpectedly, organizational trust positively predicted the same. Health conditions did not predict perpetration, in three months, while organizational conditions did not predict perpetration directly or indirectly in six months. Assessing and improving organizational trust and justice practices may help employee health improve over time. As organizational trust, justice, and health status are significantly related to current perpetration incidents, assessments of these subjects may be instrumental in identifying possible current perpetration phenomena.

Work stress is common among health care professionals and this observation also holds true for general practitioners (GPs) and their medical assistance staff in Germany. Therefore, prior studies have examined the work-related intervention needs of medical assistants (MAs). We sought to explore potential interventions that may help to address these needs according to GPs' views. Between December 2018 and April 2019 GPs were recruited via physician networks and through personal visits in general practices. Information on the nature and prevalence of 20 work-related intervention needs of MAs was presented to GPs. GPs then participated in a qualitative interview to reflect on the MAs' needs. Qualitative content analysis according to Mayring was carried out using MAXQDA. A total of 21 GPs participated and perceived many of the needs as justified. The least understanding was expressed for requests of MA related to occupational aspects that were already known prior to hiring. The responsibility to address needs was often assigned to the German health policy. GPs expressed though that they considered addressing the need for better leadership style as their own responsibility as supervisors. Furthermore, professional training was discussed as one opportunity to raise the recognition and remuneration of MAs. Measures to address the work-related intervention needs of MAs and to thereby improve the working conditions of MAs were discussed with GPs.

The Emotional Reactions to Challenging Behaviours Scale (ERCBS) was designed to evaluate the emotional states of support staff facing challenging behaviours from recipients. Employees working with People Exhibiting Intellectual Disability (PEIDs) are exposed to challenging behaviours. Exposure to challenging behaviours can affect the occupational well-being of these employees. It is thus important for investigators to have instruments assessing employees' emotional reactions to challenging behaviours reliably and validly. In this study, we translated the ERCBS into Spanish and inquired into the psychometric and structural properties of the adapted instrument. We relied on a sample of 232 employees working with PEIDs. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the ERCBS was best modelled as a two-factor measure involving a negative emotion factor and a positive emotion factor. The two factors were highly correlated (0.547), suggesting that a distinction between "emotional" and "non-emotional" individuals might be relevant when using the ERCBS. Alpha and omega reliabilities were satisfactory. ERCBS scores did not differ between men and women. ERCBS scores correlated negatively with participants' age and years of service with PEIDs. Our study suggests that the Spanish version of the ERCBS can be used to assess emotional reactions to challenging behaviours among employees working with PEIDs.

Recovery during yesterday's leisure time is beneficial for morning recovery, and morning recovery fosters employees' work engagement, a positive, motivational state associated with job performance. We extended existing research by assuming that both, morning recovery (considered a resource) and anticipated leisure time (considered an anticipated resource gain), relate to work engagement. Anticipated leisure time comprises two constructs: general anticipation of leisure time, which refers to employees' cognitive evaluation of their entire upcoming leisure time, and pleasant anticipation of a planned leisure activity, which describes a positive affective reaction because of one specific, upcoming leisure activity. We suggested that employees with high pleasant anticipation generate more thoughts of a planned leisure activity (ToPLA), which may distract them from their work, reducing their work engagement. A diary study over five days showed that morning recovery and general anticipation of leisure time were positively related to work engagement. Furthermore, employees with higher pleasant anticipation of a planned leisure activity reported more ToPLA. In contrast to our expectations, neither pleasant anticipation nor ToPLA was related to work engagement. In sum, this study introduced anticipated leisure time as a novel antecedent of work engagement and demonstrated that anticipated resource gains are important for high work engagement.

We aimed to review occupational burnout predictors, considering their type, effect size and role (protective versus harmful), and the overall evidence of their importance. MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Embase were searched from January 1990 to August 2018 for longitudinal studies examining any predictor of occupational burnout among workers. We arranged predictors in four families and 13 subfamilies of homogenous constructs. The plots of z-scores per predictor type enabled graphical discrimination of the effects. The vote-counting and binomial test enabled discrimination of the effect direction. The size of the effect was estimated using Cohen's formula. The risk of bias and the overall evidence were assessed using the MEVORECH and GRADE methods, respectively. Eighty-five studies examining 261 predictors were included. We found a moderate quality of evidence for the harmful effects of the job demands subfamily (six predictors), and negative job attitudes, with effect sizes from small to medium. We also found a moderate quality of evidence for the protective effect of adaptive coping (small effect sizes) and leisure (small to medium effect sizes). Preventive interventions for occupational burnout might benefit from intervening on the established predictors regarding reducing job demands and negative job attitudes and promoting adaptive coping and leisure.

Employees in female-dominated sectors are exposed to high workloads, emotional job demands, and role ambiguity, and often have insufficient resources to deal with these demands. This imbalance causes strain, threatening employees' work ability. The aim of this study was to examine whether resource-providing leadership at the workplace level buffers against the negative repercussions of these job demands on work ability. Employees (N = 2383) from 290 work groups across three countries (Germany, Finland, and Sweden) in female-dominated sectors were asked to complete questionnaires in this study. Employees rated their immediate supervisor's resource-providing leadership and also self-reported their work ability, role ambiguity, workload, and emotional demands. Multilevel modeling was performed to predict individual work ability with job demands as employee-level predictors, and leadership as a group-level predictor. Work ability was poor when employees reported high workloads, high role ambiguity, and high emotional demands. Resource-providing leadership at the group level had a positive impact on employees' work ability. We observed a cross-level interaction between emotional demands and resource-providing leadership. We conclude that resource-providing leadership buffers against the repercussions of emotional demands for the work ability of employees in female-dominated sectors; however, it is not influential in dealing with workload or role ambiguity.

Psychosocial risk questionnaires are common instruments in occupational safety and health promotion. Organizations use psychosocial risk questionnaires to obtain an economic overview of psychological job stressors and job resources. However, the procedures to assess if a result for a given workplace group is critical and calls for further action differ significantly and are often based on an arbitrary rule of thumb instead of empirically based evaluations. This article presents a method to translate questionnaire results into risk values for the occurrence of health impairment. We test this method on a dataset including the job stressors, job resources, and emotional exhaustion of 4210 employees from different industries. We applied logistic regression analysis to calculate the risks for impaired psychological health, indicated by high values of the burnout indicator emotional exhaustion. The results indicate significantly different health impairment risks (probabilities) for different scores on the job stressors and job resources scales as well as for scale score combinations. The risk values can be used to define cutoff values between high- and low-risk workplaces that are empirically based on stressor-strain relationships and are easily understandable by all stakeholders in the psychosocial risk assessment process, including laypersons.

Although work events can be regarded as pivotal elements of organizational life, only a few studies have examined how positive and negative events relate to and combine to affect work engagement over time. Theory suggests that, to better understand how current events affect work engagement (WE), we have to account for recent events that have preceded these current events. We present competing theoretical views on how recent and current work events may affect employees (e.g., getting used to a high frequency of negative events or becoming more sensitive to negative events). Although the occurrence of events implies discrete changes in the experience of work, prior research has not considered whether work events actually accumulate to sustained mid-term changes in WE. To address these gaps in the literature, we conducted a week-level longitudinal study across a period of 15 consecutive weeks among 135 employees, which yielded 849 weekly observations. While positive events were associated with higher levels of WE within the same week, negative events were not. Our results support neither satiation nor sensitization processes. However, a high frequency of negative events in the preceding week amplified the beneficial effects of positive events on WE in the current week. Growth curve analyses show that the benefits of positive events accumulate to sustain high levels of WE. WE dissipates in the absence of a continuous experience of positive events. Our study adds a temporal component by highlighting that positive events affect work engagement, particularly in light of recent negative events. Our study informs research that has taken a feature-oriented perspective on the dynamic interplay of job demands and resources.

Social and healthcare workers are at high risk of experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace. Although sexual harassment is detrimental to people's well-being, only a few studies have systematically investigated social and healthcare workers' experiences of different forms of sexually harassing behaviors by patients, clients, and residents in Germany. This study aimed to address this gap by determining the prevalence rates and frequency of nonverbal, verbal, and physical sexual harassment by patients, clients, and residents against social and healthcare workers. In addition, we examined the associations of sexual harassment with workers' well-being and described employees' awareness of offers of organizational support for sexual harassment prevention and aftercare. Data were collected from n = 901 employees working in a total of 61 facilities, including inpatient and outpatient care, psychiatric facilities, hospitals, and facilities for persons with disabilities. While the prevalence, frequency, and predominant forms of sexual harassment differed across sectors, the results indicated that nonverbal, verbal and physical sexual harassment were highly prevalent in social and healthcare work, with both men and women being affected. Furthermore, we found that sexual harassment was positively related to impaired well-being (e.g., depressiveness and psychosomatic complaints). In terms of support offers for sexual harassment prevention and aftercare, we found that approximately one-third of social and healthcare workers were not aware of any offers at their facilities. In addition to highlighting the problem of sexual harassment by patients, clients, and residents in social and healthcare settings, this study provides recommendations for the development of interventions and suggests several avenues for future research.

The paper describes the study design, research questions and methods of a large, international intervention project aimed at improving employee mental health and well-being in SMEs and public organisations. The study is innovative in multiple ways. First, it goes beyond the current debate on whether individual- or organisational-level interventions are most effective in improving employee health and well-being and tests the cumulative effects of multilevel interventions, that is, interventions addressing individual, group, leader and organisational levels. Second, it tailors its interventions to address the aftermaths of the Covid-19 pandemic and develop suitable multilevel interventions for dealing with new ways of working. Third, it uses realist evaluation to explore and identify the working ingredients of and the conditions required for each level of intervention, and their outcomes. Finally, an economic evaluation will assess both the cost-effectiveness analysis and the affordability of the interventions from the employer perspective. The study integrates the training transfer and the organisational process evaluation literature to develop toolkits helping end-users to promote mental health and well-being in the workplace.

The aim of this study is to obtain a better understanding of the association between the frequency of nurses' exposure to workplace aggression from patients and their levels of burnout. In particular, we seek to shed light on the role of the availability of follow-up counseling in organizations after critical incidents in mitigating the adverse relationships between physical and verbal aggression and nurses' burnout. A total of 582 nurses reported how frequently they had experienced physical and verbal aggression from patients in the last 12 months and whether they had the opportunity to receive follow-up counseling in their organization. In addition, nurses rated the extent to which they experienced each of the three dimensions of burnout (i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment). The results showed that both physical and verbal aggression were substantially related to the burnout dimensions. Furthermore, we found that the availability of follow-up counseling in organizations attenuated the relationships between physical aggression and all three burnout dimensions. While we found that the availability of follow-up counseling moderated the relationship between verbal aggression depersonalization, the moderating effects were not significant for emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. The findings indicate that the availability of follow-up counseling might help minimize the adverse impact of exposure to aggression from patients on nurses' mental health.

In this study, we investigated health-relevant job characteristics of social workers in ambulatory youth welfare services, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. Based on a systematic literature review, expert workshops, and focus group discussions with 9 experts of the target group, we identified target group-specific job demands and job resources, which we compiled into a questionnaire using content-valid scales. The target group-specific survey tool comprises 9 scales for assessing job demands and 10 scales for assessing job resources. Analyses of data from 209 social workers demonstrated desirable psychometric properties and substantial correlations of the scales with coping behaviours and indicators of employee well-being. The scales for assessing job demands were negatively related to psychological well-being and job satisfaction and positively related to burnout and depressiveness. The scales for assessing job resources showed positive correlations with indicators of positive well-being and negative correlations with indicators of impaired well-being. Regression analyses revealed that job resources explained a higher amount of variance in the positive well-being indicators compared to job demands. The study identified a broad range of health-relevant job characteristics for social workers in ambulatory youth welfare. Applying the target group-specific survey tool allows organisations to derive suitable implications for the design of health promotion programs.

According to the concept of abusive supervision, abusive supervisors display hostility towards their employees by humiliating and ridiculing them, giving them the silent treatment, and breaking promises. In this study, we argue that abusive supervision may not be limited to mistreatment at the relationship level and that the abuse is likely to extend to employees' work tasks. Drawing upon the notion that supervisors play a key role in assigning work tasks to employees, we propose that abusive supervisors may display disrespect and devaluation towards their employees through assigning illegitimate (i.e., unnecessary and unreasonable) tasks. Survey data were obtained from 268 healthcare and social services workers. The results showed that abusive supervision was strongly and positively related to illegitimate tasks. Moreover, we found that the relationship between abusive supervision and unreasonable tasks was stronger for nonsupervisory employees at the lowest hierarchical level than for supervisory employees at higher hierarchical levels. The findings indicate that abusive supervision may go beyond relatively overt forms of hostility at the relationship level. Task-level stressors may be an important additional source of stress for employees with abusive supervisors that should be considered to fully understand the devastating effects of abusive supervision on employee functioning and well-being.

Although evidence reveals severe effects of sexual harassment on care workers' mental health, there is a scarcity of studies that investigate care workers' experiences of sexually inappropriate behavior from patients or clients. One reason for this lack of research is that validated measures that assess different types of sexual harassment experienced by employees working with patients or clients are lacking. In this study, we seek to establish a conceptual framework for investigating extraorganizational sexual harassment in healthcare work. Based on this theoretical framework, we developed and validated a measure for assessing sexually harassing behaviors from patients or clients. Data were gathered from heterogeneous samples of employees working in a variety of settings in healthcare. To evaluate the factorial structure of the measure, we conducted exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using a calibration sample ( N = 179) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using a cross-validation sample ( N = 305). The construct validity of the measure was demonstrated by investigating relationships with indicators of care workers' mental health. EFA revealed three factors, namely, nonverbal, verbal, and physical acts of sexual harassment. Examination of the measure comprising 14 items revealed acceptable internal consistencies and substantial correlations with indicators of care workers' mental health. This study provides a useful and sound measure for assessing sexual harassment from patients or clients and paves the way for the development of a comprehensive theoretical framework for the assessment of sexual harassment. Furthermore, it facilitates future investigations of risk factors for sexual harassment and protective factors helping healthcare workers cope with sexual harassment from patients or clients.

This pilot study investigates the moderating role of passion for running in the relation between mental recovery from running and running-related injuries (RRIs). We predict that the relation between recovery and injuries is dependent on the level of passion. A cross-sectional survey study was conducted among 246 Dutch recreational runners. Multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that the negative association between mental recovery after running and RRIs is moderated (i.e., strengthened) by harmonious passion. Put differently, runners who are able to mentally recover well after running were less likely to report RRIs in the case of harmonious passion. Additionally, findings demonstrated that obsessively passionate runners were more likely to report RRIs. Passionate runners may benefit from education programs to help them integrate running more harmoniously with other aspects of life, and to prevent injuries. In addition, they should be educated about the crucial role of appropriate mental recovery from running. Considering mental aspects in running such as mental recovery from running and passion for running seems to be worthwhile to gain a better understanding of the incidence and/or prevalence of RRIs. Future (quasi-experimental) studies should investigate the issues raised here more profoundly., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Dialysis nurses face complex and demanding working conditions. Due to demographic changes, the number of dialysis patients has increased, while the number of skilled personnel is expected to decrease, leading to tremendous increases in quantitative demands in the near future. Against the background of increasing workload, focusing on the provision of job resources is considered a promising approach because resources can buffer the negative effects of job demands. The aim of this study is to investigate whether different job resources-in particular influence at work and feedback-play a buffering role in the relationship between job demands and employee well-being. The study used a cross-sectional paper-pencil survey design. Data were collected from 951 dialysis nurses working in dialysis facilities in Germany between October 2010 and March 2012 using validated measures of quantitative job demands, job-related resources (influence at work and feedback), and cognitive stress symptoms. To test the moderating role of resources, we applied hierarchical regression analyses. The findings indicate that feedback buffers the relationship between quantitative demands and well-being; that is, the positive relationship between quantitative demands and cognitive stress symptoms was weaker when feedback was high. However, we found no buffering role of influence at work. The results suggest that feedback is a promising resource that may buffer the negative impact of quantitative demands on well-being of dialysis nurses. The findings offer new approaches for training nurses and implementing a feedback culture.

In the literature on occupational stress and recovery from work, several facets of thinking about work during off-job time have been conceptualized. However, research on the focal concepts is currently rather diffuse. In this study we take a closer look at the five most well-established concepts: (1) psychological detachment, (2) affective rumination, (3) problem-solving pondering, (4) positive work reflection, and (5) negative work reflection. More specifically, we scrutinized (1) whether the five facets of work-related rumination are empirically distinct, (2) whether they yield differential associations with different facets of employee well-being (burnout, work engagement, thriving, satisfaction with life, and flourishing), and (3) to what extent the five facets can be distinguished from and relate to conceptually similar constructs, such as irritation, worry, and neuroticism. We applied structural equation modeling techniques to cross-sectional survey data from 474 employees. Our results provide evidence for (1) five correlated, yet empirically distinct facets of work-related rumination. (2) Each facet yields a unique pattern of association with the eight aspects of employee well-being. For instance, detachment is strongly linked to satisfaction with life and flourishing. Affective rumination is linked particularly to burnout. Problem-solving pondering and positive work reflection yield the strongest links to work engagement. (3) The five facets of work-related rumination are distinct from related concepts, although there is a high overlap between (lower levels of) psychological detachment and cognitive irritation. Our study contributes to clarifying the structure of work-related rumination and extends the nomological network around different types of thinking about work during off-job time and employee well-being.

Medical assistants' (MAs) working conditions have been characterized as precarious, and workplace-related intervention needs have been identified. However, strategies to change the MAs adverse working conditions are mostly seen on an individual level, including leaving the employer or even the profession. Since such intentions are antecedents of actual turnover, we aimed to quantify the potential link of reported unmet intervention needs with unfavorable occupational outcomes. Data were collected by means of a nationwide survey among medical assistants (n = 994) in Germany (September 2016-April 2017). The three subscales working conditions, reward from the supervisor, and task-related independence were derived from a 12-item instrument regarding work-related interventions needs (the independent variables). We used subscale-specific z-scores and a total needs z-score. The four outcome variables (i.e., intention to leave the employer, intention to leave the MA profession, choosing MA profession again, and recommending MA profession to young people) were dichotomized, and logistic regression analyses were performed and limited to MAs in employment (n = 887). We found that increasing needs according to the categorized total needs score were associated with increasing odds of all occupational outcomes. Needs pertaining to working conditions and reward from the supervisor were the strongest determinants of MAs' consideration of leaving their employer or profession (Odds ratios: 1.55-2.61). In summary, our study identified unmet work-related intervention needs that are associated with unfavorable occupational outcomes. In light of staffing shortage in health care, the identified needs should be addressed to ensure that sufficient recruitment of junior staff in the profession of medical assistants remains feasible and that experienced staff is retained.

In view of the rapid development of information and communication technologies, the present study sheds light on how work-related smartphone use during non-work time affects employees' subsequent working day. Specifically, we examine work-related smartphone use and sleep quality as moderators of next-day self-control processes at work. Theorizing that work-related smartphone use and self-control demands deplete a common limited regulatory resource, we suggest a strengthening two-way interaction between work-related smartphone use during non-work time and next-day self-control demands at work in predicting employees' ego depletion at work. Moreover, in a three-way interaction, we analyze whether this interaction depends on employees' sleep quality, assuming that when intensive work-related smartphone use is followed by high-quality sleep, the taxed regulatory resource can replenish overnight. Results from our diary study covering 10 working days ( n = 63) indicate that after evenings with high work-related smartphone use, employees experience disproportionate levels of ego depletion when dealing with self-control demands at work. Sleep quality, however, attenuates this interaction. In cases of high sleep quality, next-day self-control processes at work are no longer affected by work-related smartphone use. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for employees and employers regarding work-related smartphone use and the relevance of sleep in replenishing drained resources.

Unfinished tasks have been identified as a significant job stressor that impairs employee recovery after work. Classic experimental research by Ovsiankina has shown that people tend to resume yet unfinished tasks to satisfy their need for closure. We apply this notion to current working life and examine supplemental work after hours as a means to achieve peace of mind. We investigate how progress towards goal accomplishment through supplemental work may facilitate recovery in terms of psychological detachment, relaxation, autonomy, and mastery experiences. We conducted a week-level diary study among 83 employees over a period of 14 consecutive weeks, which yielded 575 observations in total and 214 matched observations of unfinished tasks, supplemental work during the weekend, progress, and recovery experiences. Unfinished tasks were assessed on Friday. Supplemental work and recovery experiences were assessed on Monday. Multilevel modeling analyses provide evidence that unfinished tasks at the end of the work week are associated with lower levels of detachment at the intraindividual level, tend to relate to lower relaxation, but are unrelated to autonomy and mastery. Progress towards finishing tasks during the weekend alleviates the detrimental effects of unfinished tasks on both kinds of recovery experiences. Supplemental work is negatively linked to detachment, but largely unrelated to the other recovery experiences., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Previous meta-analytic findings have provided ambiguous evidence on job control as a buffering moderator of the adverse impact of job demands on psychological well-being. To disentangle these mixed findings, we examine the moderating effect of job control on the adverse effects of quantitative workload and emotional dissonance as distinct work-related demands on emotional exhaustion over time. Drawing on the job demands-control model, the limited strength model of self-control, and the matching principle we propose that job control can facilitate coping with work-related demands but at the same time may also require employees' self-control. Consequently, we argue that job control buffers the adverse effects of quantitative workload while it reinforces the adverse effects of emotional dissonance, which also necessitates self-control. We examine the proposed relations among employees from an energy supplying company ( N = 139) in a cross-lagged panel study with a six-month time lag. Our results demonstrate a mix of causal and reciprocal effects of job characteristics on emotional exhaustion over time. Furthermore, as suggested, our data provides evidence for contrasting moderating effects of job control. That is, job control buffers the adverse effects of quantitative workload while it reinforces the adverse effects of emotional dissonance on emotional exhaustion., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.