Lahti Heidi, Kalakoski Virpi
Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland.
Faculty of Social Sciences (Psychology), Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.
Curr Psychol. 2023 Feb 9:1-19. doi: 10.1007/s12144-023-04328-3.
High levels of work stress are prevalent today, and the underlying working conditions need to be tackled urgently. In this study, our aim was to identify the range of factors that employees themselves perceive as hindrances to the flow of work, that is, hindrance stressors. We analysed the open-ended questionnaire responses of 4766 employees working in the health care sector using semi-automated content analysis. We then used more detailed conventional content analysis to compare the responses of the groups that reported high (n = 1388) and low (n = 833) levels of subjective stress. Finally, we interpreted and categorised the stressors raised by the respondents from the viewpoint of controllability, to shed light on where to target interventions. The main hindrance stressors reflected inadequate staffing, work overload, time pressure, and management-related issues, of which the responses revealed concrete examples. Interruptions and problems related to cooperation and instructions were also commonly mentioned. The respondents in the high stress group emphasised work overload and issues related to management and clients. Our results suggest that the major hindrances to daily work are beyond employees' control and require decisions and resources at the level of supervisors, managers, directors, and policymakers. Future studies on work stress should explore the controllability of common stressors in more detail and include the appraisal of controllability in explanatory models. Avoiding overemphasis of psychological coping and instead targeting harmful working conditions and the organisational actors who can influence these could make workplace stress management interventions more effective.
如今，高水平的工作压力普遍存在，其潜在的工作条件亟待解决。在本研究中，我们的目的是确定员工自身认为会阻碍工作流程的一系列因素，即阻碍性压力源。我们使用半自动内容分析法，对4766名医疗保健行业员工的开放式问卷调查回复进行了分析。然后，我们采用更详细的传统内容分析法，比较了主观压力水平高（n = 1388）和低（n = 833）的两组回复。最后，我们从可控性的角度对受访者提出的压力源进行解释和分类，以阐明干预的目标方向。主要的阻碍性压力源反映出人员配备不足、工作负担过重、时间压力以及与管理相关的问题，回复中还给出了具体例子。与合作和指令相关的干扰和问题也经常被提及。高压力组的受访者强调工作负担过重以及与管理和客户相关的问题。我们的结果表明，日常工作的主要阻碍超出了员工的控制范围，需要主管、经理、董事和政策制定者层面做出决策并提供资源。未来关于工作压力的研究应更详细地探讨常见压力源的可控性，并在解释模型中纳入对可控性的评估。避免过度强调心理应对，转而针对有害的工作条件以及能够影响这些条件的组织行为者，可能会使职场压力管理干预措施更有效。
