Browsing by Subject "työkuormitus"

The aim of this study was to test the associations between job satisfaction and job strain, defined according to Karasek's Job Demands-Control Model, as well as type D personality traits. Previous studies have mainly focused on job characteristics and other external circumstances when studying wellbeing at work. The relationship between occupational wellbeing and individual factors such as personality traits has received less attention. Based on previous studies five hypotheses were set: 1) type D personality is associated with lower job satisfaction, 2) type D personality is associated with higher job strain, 3) job strain is negatively associated with job satisfaction, 4) job control moderates the association between job demands and job satisfaction, and 5) the association between type D personality and job satisfaction is mediated by job strain. The data consisted of 1117 participants of the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study. All participants were full-time employed Finns aged 30 to 45. Type D personality was measured with a modified questionnaire based on DS14 (Denollet, 2005), job control was measured using items from the Job Content Questionnaire (Karasek, 1985) and job demands was measured using items from the Occupational Stress Questionnaire (Elo et al, 1990). Job satisfaction was measured with a single-item scale. The hypotheses were tested using linear regression analyses. The effects of gender and education level were controlled for. Employees with type D personality were found to experience lower job satisfaction and higher job strain when compared to non-type D counterparts. Of the two type D traits, only negative affectivity was a statistically significant predictor of job satisfaction. Job strain was associated with lower job satisfaction. The association between negative affectivity and job satisfaction was partly mediated by job strain. Based on these results it seems that type D personality, especially negative affectivity and job strain may be risk factors for lower occupational well-being.

The research task of this Master's thesis is to describe, analyze and interpret how the principals of Finnish elementary schools and high schools experience their workload and their job satisfaction. These are examined by the workload and resource factors of principal’s job. In addition, the ways of how the workload appears and ways of recovery are discussed. The thesis is a qualitative pilot study for a broader welfare research conducted by the Finnish Principals Association, which will be implemented during 2019. Previous studies on the work of a Finnish principal have shown that his job description is extensive, that the workload is high and job satisfaction is put to the test every day. This research was guided by the following research questions: How do principals experience their workload and work satisfaction? What are the factors that the principals feel stressing them on their work and how does the workload show? What do the principals feel are resource factors in their work and how and by what means do they recover? The material consists of interviews with sixteen Finnish principals of elementary schools and high schools. The interviews were conducted as a semi-structured theme interview. The interview questions related to the principal’s own experience of their job satisfaction, workload, the ways in which the workload appears, their experience of the resources of their work, and how they feel they success to recover, and how do they recover. The material was analyzed phenomenographically because the subject of the research were the subjective perceptions and experiences of the principals. According to the material, the Finnish principals are very satisfied with their work, despite its relatively high workload. The experience of satisfaction arises especially through the independence, significance and influence of the work. The principal's experience and attitude also seemed to be relevant to how the workload was experienced. Generally, the workload was described high and the load was described to appear as typical stress-induced warning signs, but the principals, however, judged the workload as being reasonable. The workload was considered to be a natural part of the principal's work and the respondents tended to have a constructive attitude towards it. The principals also reported that their own recovery was generally successful, which according to respondents was of great importance to coping with work.

Aims The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between job strain and presenteeism among Finnish doctors, and investigate the role of team climate as a possible moderator in the association. Sickness presenteeism or presenteeism is defined as going to work sick even when the health condition would require taking a sick leave. In previous studies, high job demands have been associated with higher presenteeism, whereas support from colleagues has been associated with lower presenteeism. However, the relationship between job strain and presenteeism, where job strain is a combination of job demands and control, has not been examined before. Good team climate has been suggested to diminish the negative consequences of job demands but its moderation in the relationship of job strain and presenteeism has not been studied before. Methods The sample of the study (n = 2309) was based on a survey “Doctor’s health and work conditions 2015”. Quotient, linear and categorical job strain variables, as well as four job types, were formed of job demands and control. Team climate was measured by participative safety of Team Climate Inventory. Presenteeism was measured with the question ”Have you gone to work sick during the past 12 months?” and predicted with logistic regression in doctors who worked full-time and had answered to all the items used in the study. Results and conclusions 62% of the respondents had worked sick during the past year. High job demands and job strain were associated with higher presenteeism. In contrast, job control was associated with lower presenteeism. Good team climate weakened only the relationship between presenteeism and very high job strain, but not between presenteeism and other work conditions. However, the observed effect sizes were small.

The aim of this article-type master's thesis was to examine the stress, coping, and metacognitive perspectives of special education teachers working in primary school during the remote teaching and learning period caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the study was to examine what kind of stress and coping experiences the teachers had during the remote learning period, as well as what kind of mindset the teachers had when facing the workload. In addition, the dissertation examined the connection between teachers' ways of thinking and experiencing the intensity of workload. Experiences were examined using the Coping-Competence-Context (3C)-model. The data of the study was collected by thematic interviews with special education teachers (n = 11) working in different parts of Finland. Teachers were working in primary schools during the remote teaching and learning period. In these interviews conducted remotely, respondents were asked to describe their experiences of workload, recovery from work, and mindset and attitudes towards work. The data were analyzed using theoretical content analysis. Qualitative analysis program ATLAS.ti version 8 was used to organize the data. The workload experienced by special education teachers was mainly emotional, and often related to daily work changes. The coping strategies were used in a variety of ways, and their use was increased and new means were introduced during the remote learning period. The part of the 3C model focusing on recovery received support from teachers’ experiences, suggesting that teacher workload and recovery are directly related. The link between metacognitive perspectives and intensity of the workload was only partially supported: two teachers who had a stress-is-debilitating mindset experienced a higher-than-average workload. Instead, nine teachers who had a stress-is-enhancing mindset experienced both light and intense workload. The article ”Laaja-alaisten erityisopettajien työn kuormitus ja palautuminen sekä ajattelutavat COVID-19-pandemian aiheuttaman etäopetusjakson aikana: kokemusten tarkastelua Coping-Competence-Context-mallin avulla” is to be published in the NMI Bulletin.

Objectives. There is a lack of knowledge concerning the contribution of the character traits to the association of work stress and over-commitment with common mental health problems. Primary school teachers are a large, homogenous occupational group that has been related to higher work stress levels and common mental health problems, although to a lesser amount of actual mental disorders. The aim of the study is to examine the extent to which the association between work stress, over-commitment and their interaction with common mental health problems can be attributed to the character traits among primary school teachers. Methods. The data consists of 76 (87% females) primary school teachers from 34 schools randomly selected to a study taking part in the capital area of Finland in 2013-14. There were 1-6 teachers who responded from each school (participation rate 4-33%). Common mental health problems were measured by GHQ-12 (psychological distress) and cognitive anxiety from a state anxiety scale of EMAS (highest tertile vs. two lowest). Work stress and over-commitment (the upper tertile vs. the rest) were measured according to original Siegrist's Effort-Reward-Imbalance Questionnaire. Character traits Self-directness, Cooperativeness, and Self-Transcendence were measured by Cloninger's TCI-questionnaire and each character was dichotomized at median to indicate a higher and lower category of the trait. The control variables were age, working hours and job contract type. The data were analyzed by means of Poisson regression (prevalence ratios, PR, and 90% confidence intervals) and relative rates. Results. Of teachers 30% had common mental health problems. The teachers with high over-commitment in comparison with those with low over-commitment had more often psychological distress (PR=2.5, p=0.018) and cognitive anxiety (PR=2.8, p=0.004). Although work stress was not independently associated with common mental health problems, it was related to the increased psychological distress among those with high over-commitment. Controlling for self-directedness attenuated the association of over-commitment with psychological distress and cognitive anxiety by 29% and 47%, respectively. After all adjustments, an independent association of Self-Directness with cognitive anxiety remained (PR=0.3, p=0.024). The other two character traits didn't have an independent impact on common mental health problems among the primary school teachers, but with the concurrent low self-directedness, low cooperativeness and low Self-Transcendence were related to over-commitment and increased level of cognitive anxiety. Both low cooperativeness and low self-transcendence were related to psychological symptoms. Conclusions: The primary school teachers had higher prevalence of common mental health problems, if they had low self-directedness and were over-committed to their work. Enhancing self-directedness may help in decreasing common mental health problems among overcommitted teachers. In the future the associations of the trait profiles with over-commitment and mental health symptoms should be studied with the larger longitudinal data.

Johdanto: OECD ja EU ovat arvioineet mielenterveyteen liittyvien ongelmien aiheuttavan työelämässä Suomessa lähes 5 miljardin euron vuosikustannuksen. Työn kuormittavuudella on tutkimusten mukaan todettu olevan yhteyttä muun muassa työuupumukseen ja muihin mielenterveysongelmiin. Lapsuuden sosioekonomisella asemalla on havaittu olevan yhteys työn kuormittavuuteen ja mielenterveyteen. Persoonallisuudella on tutkimuksissa puolestaan todettu olevan vaikutuksia työhyvinvointiin. Pro gradu -työssä halutaan selvittää muovaako persoonallisuus lapsuuden sosioekonomisen taustan yhteyttä työkuormitukseen. Syy-yhteyksien parempi ymmärtäminen voi auttaa kohdentamaan toimenpiteitä ja mahdollisia interventioita työn kuormittavuuden ja siitä aiheutuvien kustannusten alentamiseksi. Menetelmät: Tutkimusaineistona on Lasten Sepelvaltimotaudin Riskitekijät -tutkimusaineisto, jossa pitkittäisaineistoa on kerätty vuodesta 1980 alkaen. Klusterianalyysin avulla määriteltiin persoonallisuusprofiilit. Logistisella regressioanalyysillä tutkittiin persoonallisuusprofiilien sekä Big 5 persoonallisuuspiirteiden muovaavaa vaikutusta lapsuuden sosioekonomisen taustan ja työkuormituksen välillä. Tulokset: Klusterianalyysin tulosten perusteella löydettiin joustava, viileä ja hauras -persoonallisuusprofiilit. Tulokset vahvistivat neuroottisuuden, joustavan ja hauraan persoonallisuusprofiilin suorat yhteydet korkeaan ja matalaan työkuormitukseen. Uusina merkittävinä havaintoina oli kahden eri persoonallisuuspiirteen muovaava vaikutus yhdessä lapsuuden sosioekonomisten tekijöiden kanssa: erityisesti matala sovinnollisuus lapsuuden matalan sosioekonomisen taustan tilanteessa lisäsi riskiä kuulua korkean työkuormituksen kategoriaan ja matala tunnollisuus lisäsi todennäköisyyttä kuulua matalan työkuormituksen kategoriaan. Pohdinta: Kokonaistarkastelussa havaittiin persoonallisuuspiirteiden muovaava vaikutus työkuormitukseen. Olisi tärkeää pohtia miten sovinnollisuutta lisääviä elementtejä voitaisiin tuoda mukaan jo kouluihin ja varhaiskasvatukseen. Havaintoja voidaan hyödyntää organisaatioissa muun muassa henkilövalinnoissa, esimiestyön kehittämisessä, stressin hallinnassa ja hyvinvoinnin lisäämisessä organisaatioissa.

Work related exhaustion is widely known phenomenon in the field of teaching. It is stated to be negatively correlated with teachers work results, the well-being of the work community and the quality of ones personal well-being and private life. Previous study indicates sicnifigant amount of teachers to be exhausted due to the factors in work. This exhaustion leads to absence and even to change of career. The goal of this research is to study the amount and quality of experienced exhaustion in terms of teachers’ age and work experience. The data was gathered from 163 teachers from six different schools from the Helsinki metropolitan area between March 2019 and February 2020. The group of respondents consisted of subject-, primary- and class teachers working primary schools. The data was collected with a survey which included an open ended question: ”What are the factors in your work that make you exhausted?” In addition teachers’ age and the amount of years in duty were sorted out. The quality and quantity of workload were measured with data-driven content analysis, theme design and scoring. For the analysis respondents were divided into three different groups based on their age and to five different groups based on their work experience. The quality and the quantity of work related stress in terms of teachers’ age and work experience were analysed reviewing correlations, running regression- and variance analysis and finally with crosstabulation. Age and work experience were noted to measure the same thing and therefore the analysis concentrated on age as a factor. The results show that age and the amount of experienced exhaustion are correlating negatively. In other words generally younger teachers were more exhausted whereas older teachers were not as exhausted. In addition the differences between age groups were significant in terms of the amount of exhaustion From the exhaustion themes ”students”, work-enviroment”, ”uncontrollability” and co-operation with parents” correlated negatively with teachers’ age. The age groups differed in terms of the quality of the workload, with younger teachers perceiving students, the amount of workload, resources, uncontrollability, the work environment and co-operation with parents as the most burdensome issues in their work. Middle-aged teachers found the lack of time and co-operation with professionals the most stressful factors in their work. The oldest teachers found additional non-core tasks/issues and poor management to be the most burdensome factors in their work. The results were largely in line with the previous study. Lack of time was the biggest exhaustion theme experienced regardless of the group. It is possible that the research results were partly explained by the demands placed on teachers by the change in society, the disregard for the needs of the individual in education policy, the harmful structures of the school for an individual and the individual's lack of influential opportunities. In further research, it would be important to consider the cause-and-effect relation-ships of different work load themes more profoundly and to include a broader and thus more generalized sample of respondents in the research. The research can be utilized in the development of teachers' well-being at work and as a tool in further research.

Presenteeism (working despite feeling sick) has become a popular object for research in occupational psychology in the 21st century. It has been claimed that stressful psychosocial aspects of work (e.g. job demands) are connected to presenteeism. The purpose of this degree was to find out what can be said about these connections considering current scientific evidence. Another goal was to examine the directionality of these connections, although the causality from job demands to presenteeism was analyzed more thoroughly than the other possible directions. The cross-sectional evidence on connections between job demands and presenteeism is rather incomplete. There have been multiple studies in which the statistically significant correlation between these two phenomena have been found, but the direction of causality cannot be deduced from these studies. There are several ways to operationalize job demands and it has been concluded by a meta-analysis that the strongest connections to presenteeism seem to be with physical demands of work, understaffing, overtime work and general time pressure. There are few longitudinal studies on this issue but from these few studies there has arisen partial support for the idea that higher job demands can lead to presenteeism. The most relevant take-away message from these studies is that the connections between job demands and presenteeism may well be reciprocal and lead to a vicious circle. The biggest limitations in studies are related to the cross-sectionality, the sole use of self-report methods and the poor generalizability due to selected samples. In addition, there have been conversations about the reliability and validity of the self-report measures used in research. Due to these limitations, not much can be said about the connections between job demands and presenteeism. The correlative connections have been repeatedly replicated in various studies which indicates that there most likely is some sort of connection between these two phenomena. However, the prominent use of cross-sectional studies makes it impossible to draw conclusions about the direction of causality. Theoretical frameworks have been underutilized in the planning of studies and there hasn’t been enough research on specific hypotheses derived from these theories. The current scientific evidence is too general. Hence, it’s not possible to analyze the connections between job demands and presenteeism very precisely. These shortcomings can be mended in the future by focusing on well-designed longitudinal studies.

Aims: Healthcare workers commonly suffer from workplace aggression, so it is important to understand factors that may increase its risk. Previous studies have shown that job demands increase the risk of inappropriate treatment at workplace. Furthermore, poorly functioning, and constantly changing information systems form a major work stressor for doctors. Therefore, the current study examines if physicians that re-port higher levels of stress related to information systems are also more likely to re-port experiencing workplace aggression. Methods: The sample for the study (n=3327) was collected in the cross-sectional Finnish Physicians’ Working Conditions and Health 2019 -study. Both physical and non-physical aggression were measured, and a combined variable for general aggression was also formed from them. For non-physical aggression, also the perpetrator of aggression was examined: patients or their relatives, and co-workers or superiors. For each type of aggression, logistic regression analysis was used with stress related to in-formation systems as the predictive variable. Results and conclusions: Higher levels of stress related to information systems were associated with higher likelihood of aggression in all types of aggression. The association was strongest with non-physical aggression. These results emphasize the importance of designing functional information systems to improve both the wellbeing of physicians and the quality of patient care in the future. However, the current findings warrant more research, especially regarding the possible mediating factors between stress related to information systems and workplace aggression.

Tavoitteet Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli tarkastella suomalaisten lääkäreiden työajan vaikutusta koettuun työkuormitukseen, unihäiriöihin ja koettuun terveydentilaan sekä työkuormituksen, unihäiriöiden ja terveydentilan yhteyttä toisiinsa. Lääkäreiden työaikaa tarkasteltiin päivystystyön määrällä sekä viikoittaisen työajan määrällä. Päivystystyöhön rinnastettavan vuorotyön ja työajan suuren määrän tiedetään olevan yhteydessä useisiin terveyshaittoihin, kuten sydän- ja verisuonisairauksiin, ylipainoon ja tyypin 2 diabetekseen. Unihäiriöiden sekä työkuormituksen tiedetään myös toimivan riskitekijöinä negatiivisille terveysvaikutuksille. Työajan vaikutusta lääkäreiden hyvinvointiin ei olla silti erikseen tutkittu suomalaisilla lääkäreillä. Menetelmät Tutkimus perustui valtakunnalliseen Lääkäreiden työolot ja terveys 2006 -kyselytutkimuksen aineistoon (n=2825). Työkuormitusta mitattiin työn vaatimuksien ja työn hallinnan mallin mukaan. Tutkimuksessa verrattiin kuormittavaa työtä muihin kolmeen tunnettuun työtyyppiin. Unihäiriöitä mitattiin Jenkinsin unikyselyllä ja terveydentilaa mitattiin subjektiivisesti koetulla yleisellä terveydentilalla muihin ikätovereihin verrattuna. Vaikutuksia terveydentilaan tarkasteltiin logistisilla regressioanalyyseilla sekä muuttujien välisiä keskinäisiä yhteyksiä tarkasteltiin polkumalleilla neljässä eri ikä- ja sukupuoliryhmässä. Tulokset Työaika ei ollut yhteydessä unihäiriöihin, työkuormitukseen tai huonommaksi koettuun terveydentilaan. Työkuormitus ja unihäiriöt olivat yhteydessä huonommaksi koettuun terveydentilaan ja unihäiriöt välittivät osittain työkuormituksen ja terveydentilan välisiä yhteyksiä. Unihäiriöt ja työkuormitus olivat myös yhteydessä toisiinsa. Tuloksissa oli hajontaa neljässä eri sukupuoli- ja ikäryhmässä.