Impact of COVID-19 on psychosocial work factors and emotional exhaustion among healthcare workers

Abstract Background Healthcare workers are at risk to develop mental health problems and to experience adverse psychosocial working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to investigate across subgroups of healthcare workers i) differences in psychosocial working conditions and emotional exhaustion, ii) changes in psychosocial working conditions and emotional exhaustion during the pandemic compared to the situation before, and iii) impact of different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of hospital pressure on psychosocial working conditions and emotional exhaustion. Methods Data on psychosocial working conditions and emotional exhaustion of five measurements from 1,915 healthcare workers participating in the longitudinal study ‘the Netherlands Working Conditions Survey- COVID-19’ were used. Three subgroups were defined: working with COVID-19 patients, working with other patients, and not working with patients. For each measurement, hospital pressure was determined. Linear mixed models were fitted to analyze the differences across subgroups of healthcare workers. Results Healthcare workers working with patients, in particular COVID-19 patients, had more unfavorable psychosocial working conditions than those not working with patients. Psychosocial working conditions deteriorated among those working with patients compared to pre-COVID-19, but no changes were found for emotional exhaustion. An increasing hospital pressure resulted in improved job autonomy and emotional demands among healthcare workers working with COVID-19 patients, but did not result in differences in other working conditions and emotional exhaustion. Conclusions Psychosocial working conditions deteriorated for healthcare workers working with (COVID-19) patients during the pandemic compared to the situation before the pandemic, while emotional exhaustion did not change in these subgroups. This shows the importance of interventions to improve working conditions of healthcare workers. Key messages Healthcare workers working with (COVID-19) patients experience unfavorable psychosocial working conditions, which deteriorated during COVID-19. No changes were found for emotional exhaustion. An increase in hospital pressure did not further deteriorate psychosocial working conditions.


Background:
As longevity and retirement ages are increasing, knowledge is needed on factors hindering extended working lives. The aim of this study was to explore how sickness absence (SA) and disability pension (DP) due to mental and/or somatic diagnoses before age 65 were associated with being in paid work when aged 66-71. Methods: A 6-year prospective population-based cohort study of all 98,551 people (48% women) in Sweden who turned 65 years in 2010 (baseline year) and had been in paid work at any point when aged 60-64. Microdata from nationwide registers were used. Exposure variables were SA (spells >14 days) and/or DP in [2005][2006][2007][2008][2009], and the outcome variable was paid work at any point in 2011-2016. Logistic regression was used to calculate odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for associations between exposures and outcome, controlling for sociodemographic factors in 2010, stratified by sex.

Results:
Most women (56.0%) and men (66.3%) had no SA or DP when aged 60-64. Of the women, 42.7% and of the men 53.3% were in paid work after the age of 65. Those with SA due to mental diagnoses had lower OR of being in paid work (women 0.76; 95% CI: 0.69-0.84; men 0.74; 0.65-0.84). This association was weaker for SA due to somatic diagnoses (women 0.87; 0.84-0.91; men 0.92; 0.89-0.96). Having had SA due to both mental and somatic diagnoses was associated with lower OR for men (0.77; 0.65-0.91) but not women (0.98; 0.88-1.09). Full-or part-time DP had the strongest association with not being in paid work regardless of diagnosis group and sex (e.g., women mental DP 0.39; 0.34-0.45; women somatic DP 0.38; 0.35-0.41; men mental DP 0.36; 0.29-0.43; men somatic DP 0.35; 0.32-0.38). Conclusions: SA due to mental diagnoses had a stronger association with not being in paid work after age 65 than SA due to somatic diagnoses. The results highlight the importance of identifying factors that hinder older workers with mental disorders to extend their working lives. Key messages: Many were in paid work after age 65, also among those with previous SA. However, this was less likely among those who had been on SA due to mental diagnoses compared to somatic diagnoses.

Background:
Increasing the labour market participation of people with a reduced ability to work is a big labour market challenge in many countries. In Finland, one third of all new disability pensions are granted as partial pensions. It is also known that most partial disability pensioners continue working while receiving a pension. There is only limited research about the length of employment of partial disability pensioners and the factors associated with employment in retirement. The aim of this study was to examine the employment at the onset of partial disability retirement and four years after retirement, and to examine how age, gender, educational level, employment sector, diagnosis and type of pension are associated with employment after partial disability retirement.

Methods:
Our Finnish register data comprised 7,617 partial disability pensioners aged 20-58 who retired in 2013 or 2014. Logistic and multinomial logistic regression analysis were used to estimate OR:s and 95 percent CI:s for employment at the onset of partial disability retirement and four years after retirement.
Results: 81 percent of partial disability pensioners were employed when retiring on a partial disability pension. Four years later, 50 percent were still drawing a partial disability pension, of whom 77 percent were working. 11 percent were employed but no longer drawing a partial disability pension. The partial disability pensioners who were more often employed were younger, female, more highly educated, working in the public sector and receiving a temporary disability pension.

Conclusions:
Many sociodemographic factors are associated with employment at the onset of partial disability retirement and with continued working while drawing a partial disability pension. Key messages: Employment after partial disability retirement is common and relatively stable. After four years of retirement, more than 70 percent of partial disability pensioners were still working. Many sociodemographic factors are associated with employment after partial disability retirement.
Abstract citation ID: ckac130.130 Impact of COVID-19 on psychosocial work factors and emotional exhaustion among healthcare workers

Background:
Healthcare workers are at risk to develop mental health problems and to experience adverse psychosocial working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to investigate across subgroups of healthcare workers i) differences in psychosocial working conditions and emotional exhaustion, ii) changes in psychosocial working conditions and emotional exhaustion during the pandemic compared to the situation before, and iii) impact of different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of hospital pressure on psychosocial working conditions and emotional exhaustion.

Methods:
Data on psychosocial working conditions and emotional exhaustion of five measurements from 1,915 healthcare workers participating in the longitudinal study 'the Netherlands Working Conditions Survey-COVID-19' were used. Three subgroups were defined: working with COVID-19 patients, working with other patients, and not working with patients. For each measurement, hospital pressure was determined. Linear mixed models were fitted to analyze the differences across subgroups of healthcare workers.

Results:
Healthcare workers working with patients, in particular COVID-19 patients, had more unfavorable psychosocial working conditions than those not working with patients. Psychosocial working conditions deteriorated among those working with patients compared to pre-COVID-19, but no changes were found for emotional exhaustion. An increasing hospital pressure resulted in improved job autonomy and emotional demands among healthcare workers working with COVID-19 patients, but did not result in differences in other working conditions and emotional exhaustion.

Conclusions:
Psychosocial working conditions deteriorated for healthcare workers working with (COVID-19) patients during the pandemic compared to the situation before the pandemic, while emotional exhaustion did not change in these subgroups. This shows the importance of interventions to improve Background: Cardiovascular diseases represent the main cause of mortality worldwide. While cardiovascular risk (CVR) has decreased in grown adults and elderly in the last years due to innovative therapies and prevention, it seems to be rising among young adults. The aim of our study was to map the 10-year CVR in healthcare workers (HCWs) at the teaching hospital Policlinico Umberto I of Rome and identify possible determinants in order to design and implement preventive strategies.

Methods:
A cross-sectional study was carried out between January 2019 and July 2020. 525 HCWs aged 20-40 years were recruited. All participants underwent, after informed consent, medical history collection, physical examination and blood tests. CVR was measured using Framingham Risk Score (FRS) and CUORE score (CVR score developed by the Italian National Institute of Health). Univariate, bivariate and multivariate analysis were performed. Results: CVR evaluated with FRS correlated positively with age (b = 0.104, p < 0.001), being a shift worker (b = 0.06, p = 0.037), and negatively with female gender (b = -0.757, p < 0.001). No differences were found between being a doctor or a nurse. CVR evaluated with CUORE score correlated positively with age (b = 0.698, p < 0.001), and negatively with female gender (b = -0.332, p < 0.001) and being a doctor (b = -0.220, p < 0.001). Inferential analysis showed low correlation between FRS and CUORE Score (R2 = 0.340).

Conclusions:
Our study demonstrates that females have a lower CVR among HCWs. On the contrary, 15% of male HCWs show a CVR above the average. FRS and CUORE score indicate that advancing age determines an increase in CVR. There is a low correlation between the scores used, in fact CUORE score underestimates the CVR of shift workers while it is known that this particular category is at higher risk.

Background:
Despite measures to ensure occupational safety, harmful workplace conditions that negatively impact worker health persist. The baseline assessment of the German National Cohort (NAKO) provides a basis for determining the prevalence of occupational hazards and early retirement (due to health reasons).

Methods:
From 2014 to 2017, the NAKO examined 205,141 participants aged 20-69 years at 18 study centers across Germany. Working participants were asked about exposure to airborne particulates, occupational noise, evening and night work, sick days, presenteeism, and personal safety equipment use (respiratory masks, hearing protection). The assessment also included questions on retirement. We examined the distributions descriptively.

Results:
A total of 84.2% (n = 172,766) participants were ever employed. Of these participants, 7.9% reported ever working in a job with dust or air particulate exposure where a respiratory mask was required for at least one year. However, nearly one-third (31.6%) of the particulate-exposed workers reported not having worn a mask. 11.4% worked at least a year in a job that required hearing protection, but 27.2% of noiseexposed workers did not comply with this safety measure. Over half of the workers sometimes worked between 6 and 10 pm, and 18.7% sometimes worked at night (11 pm to 6 am) in the last three months. On average, participants used 10.5 sick days in the previous year, and the 12-month prevalence of going to work sick at least one day (presenteeism) was 64.9%. Nearly one-fourth (24.4%; n = 9043) of retirees reported early retirement due to health reasons.