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Purpose: We investigated relations between day-to-day job demands, job control, job strain, social support at work, and day-to-day work–life interference among office workers in academia. Methods: This study is based on a 15-working day data collection period using an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) implemented in our self-developed STRAW smartphone application. We recruited office workers from two academic settings in Belgium and Slovenia. Participants were repeatedly asked to complete EMAs including work stressors and work interfering with personal life (WIPL) as well as personal life interfering with work (PLIW). We applied fixed-effect model testing with random intercepts to investigate within- and between-participant levels. Results: We included 55 participants with 2261 analyzed observations in this study. Our data showed that researchers with a PhD reported higher WIPL compared to administrative and technical staff (β = 0.37, p < 0.05). We found significant positive associations between job demands (β = 0.53, p < 0.001), job control (β = 0.19, p < 0.01), and job strain (β = 0.61, p < 0.001) and WIPL. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction effect between job control and social support at work on WIPL (β = − 0.24, p < 0.05). Additionally, a significant negative association was found between job control and PLIW (β = − 0.20, p < 0.05). Conclusion: Based on our EMA study, higher job demands and job strain were correlated with higher WIPL. Furthermore, we found associations going in opposite directions; higher job control was correlated with higher WIPL and lower PLIW. Higher job control leading to higher imbalance stands out as a novel result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature indicates that academic staff experience increasing levels of work stress. This study investigated associations between day-to-day threat and challenge appraisal and day-to-day problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, and seeking social support among academic office workers. This study is based on an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) design with a 15-working day data collection period utilising our self-developed STRAW smartphone application. A total of 55 office workers from academic institutions in Belgium (n = 29) and Slovenia (n = 26) were included and 3665 item measurements were analysed. Participants were asked approximately every 90 min about their appraisal of stressful events (experienced during the working day) and their coping styles. For data analysis, we used an unstructured covariance matrix in our linear mixed models. Challenge appraisal predicted problem-focused coping and threat appraisal predicted emotion-focused coping. Our findings suggest an association between threat appraisal as well as challenge appraisal and seeking social support. Younger and female workers chose social support more often as a coping style. While working from home, participants were less likely to seek social support. The findings of our EMA study confirm previous research on the relationship between stress appraisal and coping with stress. Participants reported seeking social support less while working from home compared to working at the office, making the work location an aspect that deserves further research., (© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)