Center for Primary Care and Public Health (Unisanté), Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
BMC Psychol. 2023 May 3;11(1):145. doi: 10.1186/s40359-023-01123-4.
The daily working life of many employees requires the use of modern information and communication technology (ICT) devices such as computers, tablets, and smartphones. The double-edged nature of digital work environments has been increasingly highlighted. Benefits such as increased flexibility come at a personal cost. One of the potential downsides is workplace telepressure, i.e., the experience of urge and preoccupation to quickly reply to work-related messages and demands using ICT. There is initial - mainly survey-based-evidence that workplace telepressure may have negative effects on a variety of wellbeing and health outcomes.
Adopting the Effort-Recovery Model and the concept of allostatic load as theoretical frameworks, the present study aims to investigate the hypothesis that workplace telepressure is significantly associated with increased "wear and tear", in the form of more psychosomatic complaints, worse sleep quality (self-reported and actigraphy-based), worse mood, and biological alterations (lower cardiac vagal tone, lower anabolic balance defined as the ratio of salivary dehydroepiandrosterone to salivary cortisol, and higher salivary alpha-amylase). Additionally, the study aims to investigate the hypothesis that connection to work defined as work-related workload and work-related perseverative cognition plays a significant role in the mediation of these relationships.
To test our hypotheses, we will conduct an ambulatory assessment study with a convenience sample of 120 healthy workers regularly using ICTs for job communication. For one week, participants will be asked to complete electronic diaries assessing their level of workplace telepressure, psychosomatic complaints, sleep quality, mood, work-related workload, and work-related perseverative cognition. They will also continuously wear the Bittium Faros 180L ECG monitor, the wrist-worn actigraph MotionWatch 8, and perform saliva sampling five times per day.
This study will be the most comprehensive ambulatory investigation of workplace telepressure and its psychophysiological concomitants to date and constitutes an important step towards understanding how high levels of workplace telepressure may lead in the long term to secondary alterations (e.g., hypertension, chronic inflammation) and disease (e.g., heart disease). The findings of this study are also anticipated to contribute to guiding the development and implementation of interventions, programs, and policies relevant to employees' digital wellbeing.
许多员工的日常工作都需要使用现代信息和通信技术（ICT）设备，如电脑、平板电脑和智能手机。数字工作环境的双刃剑性质日益凸显。灵活性等好处是以个人代价为代价的。潜在的缺点之一是工作场所的远程工作压力，即体验到快速回复与工作相关的信息和要求的紧迫感和关注。有初步的——主要是基于调查的——证据表明，工作场所远程工作压力可能对各种幸福感和健康结果产生负面影响。
本研究采用努力-恢复模型和应激负荷概念作为理论框架，旨在验证以下假设：工作场所远程工作压力与更多的身心抱怨、更差的睡眠质量（自我报告和基于活动记录仪的）、更差的情绪和生物变化（较低的心脏迷走神经张力、较低的合成代谢平衡定义为唾液脱氢表雄酮与唾液皮质醇的比值，以及较高的唾液α-淀粉酶）显著相关。此外，该研究旨在验证以下假设：与工作相关的工作量和与工作相关的持续认知的连接在这些关系的中介中起着重要作用。
为了检验我们的假设，我们将对 120 名经常使用 ICT 进行工作沟通的健康员工进行一项便利样本的动态评估研究。在一周内，参与者将被要求完成电子日记，评估他们的工作场所远程工作压力水平、身心抱怨、睡眠质量、情绪、与工作相关的工作量和与工作相关的持续认知。他们还将连续佩戴 Bittium Faros 180L ECG 监测器、手腕佩戴的 Actigraph MotionWatch 8，并每天五次进行唾液采样。
这将是迄今为止对工作场所远程工作压力及其心理生理伴随物进行的最全面的动态研究，是理解高水平的工作场所远程工作压力如何在长期内导致继发性改变（如高血压、慢性炎症）和疾病（如心脏病）的重要一步。预计这项研究的结果也将有助于指导与员工数字健康相关的干预措施、计划和政策的制定和实施。
