Diagnostic Performances of an Occupational Burnout Detection Method Designed for Healthcare Professionals.

BACKGROUND: We aimed to assess the validity (criterion and cross-cultural validity) and reliability of the first occupational burnout (OB) detection tool designed for healthcare professionals in Belgium in the context of Swiss medical practice. METHODS: First, we assessed the sensitivity and specificity of the Tool. We developed this tool based on the consultation reports of 42 patients and compared its detection to the results of the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI), filled-in by patients before a consultation. Second, we performed an inter-rater reliability (IRR) assessment on the OB symptoms and detection reached by the Tool between a psychiatrist, two psychologists, and an occupational physician. RESULTS: The Tool correctly identified over 80% of patients with OB, regardless of the cutoff value used for OLBI scores, reflecting its high sensitivity. Conversely, its specificity strongly varied depending on the OLBI cutoff. There was a slight to fair overall agreement between the four raters on the detection of OB and the number of OB symptoms. Around 41% of symptoms showed a substantial to an almost perfect agreement, and 36% showed a slight to a moderate agreement. CONCLUSIONS: The Tool seems useful for identifying OB of moderate and strong severity in both the Belgian and Swiss contexts.

Interest of a Joint Use of Two Diagnostic Tools of Burnout: Comparison between the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory and the Early Detection Tool of Burnout Completed by Physicians.

Most research on burnout is based on self-reported questionnaires. Nevertheless, as far as the clinical judgement is concerned, a lack of consensus about burnout diagnosis constitutes a risk of misdiagnosis. Hence, this study aims to assess the added value of a joint use of two tools and compare their diagnostic accuracy: (1) the early detection tool of burnout, a structured interview guide, and (2) the Oldenburg burnout inventory, a self-reported questionnaire. The interview guide was tested in 2019 by general practitioners and occupational physicians among 123 Belgian patients, who also completed the self-reported questionnaire. A receiver operating characteristic curve analysis allowed the identification of a cut-off score for the self-reported questionnaire. Diagnostic accuracy was then contrasted by a McNemar chi-squared test. The interview guide has a significantly higher sensitivity (0.76) than the self-reported questionnaire (0.70), even by comparing the self-reported questionnaires with the interviews of general practitioners and occupational physicians separately. However, both tools have a similar specificity (respectively, 0.60-0.67), except for the occupational physicians' interviews, where the specificity (0.68) was significantly lower than the self-reported questionnaire (0.70). In conclusion, the early detection tool of burnout is more sensitive than the Oldenburg burnout inventory, but seems less specific. However, by crossing diagnoses reported by patients and by physicians, they both seem useful to support burnout diagnosis.

Returning the Favor? Feeling Obliged and Reported Participation in Discretionary Safety Activities.

Recent research has shown that the reported participation of employees in voluntary safety activities is related to the prevention of accidents and injuries. Encouraging such participation, then, is beneficial to organizations. A key question, therefore, is why employees should choose to report that they engage in such activities: what is their motivation given such activities are not compulsory? We used social exchange theory (SET) and organizational support theory (OST) to develop a model linking perceived organizational support to reports of safety participation. SET postulates that the benefits given (by an organization) are reciprocated with potential benefits to the giver as a result. OST emphasizes that feeling obliged is a key part of why people reciprocate the perceived support they get from their organization. Voluntary safety activities have the potential to benefit an organization, so for the first time, we test whether there is a link between perceived organizational support and the reported participation of employees in such activities, and whether the relationship is mediated by felt obligation. We also test whether another key SET motivation to reciprocate, the anticipated reward, is involved in mediating the relationship. A structural equation model with a sample of 536 workers from a Belgian public company, involved in the production and distribution of safe drinking water and in waste water treatment, supported the hypotheses of the authors. The model showed that felt obligation mediated the relationship between perceived organizational support and safety participation reports, and that the anticipatory reward, in the form of perceptions that management was committed to safety, also mediated the relationship between perceived organizational support and safety participation reports. These processes were shown to be separable from employee job engagement and employee perspectives on whether or not voluntary safety activities were part of their job. The findings add to the understanding of why employees choose reported participation in voluntary safety behaviors and also, add to the literature on OST by demonstrating for the first time the involvement of felt obligation and perceived management commitment to safety as mediators between outcomes and perceived organizational support.

The Glass Ceiling for Women Managers: Antecedents and Consequences for Work-Family Interface and Well-Being at Work.

Despite significant promotion of diversity in companies, as well as legislation for equal opportunities for women and men, it must be noted that women still remain largely in the minority in decision-making positions. This observation reflects the phenomenon of the glass ceiling that constitutes vertical discrimination within companies against women. Although the glass ceiling has generated research interest, some authors have pointed out that theoretical models have made little attempt to develop an understanding of this phenomenon and its implications. Therefore, our study aims to fill this gap and to better understand the phenomenon of the glass ceiling by considering both its antecedents and its possible consequences. More precisely, we extend the model developed by Elacqua et al. (2009), proposing a more comprehensive model including organizational gender culture as a third factor (in addition to situational and interpersonal issues) in the emergence of the glass ceiling through the perception of differential treatment. We also investigated the glass ceiling's consequences for organizational attitudes and well-being at work by considering work-to-family conflict (WFC) as a possible mediator. We surveyed 320 women in managerial positions in a Belgian organization. Our study highlights the importance of all three factors in the emergence of the perception of differential treatment and, ultimately, the perception that a glass ceiling exists. Moreover, our results show that WFC fully mediates the effects of the glass ceiling on job strain and job engagement, and partially mediates the effects of the glass ceiling on job satisfaction and intention to quit.

Personality and safety citizenship: the role of safety motivation and safety knowledge.

Safety citizenship behaviors (SCB) have never been classified following the intended beneficiary of these behaviors. The first aim of this study was to examine Hofmann et al. (2003)'s SCB items in an attempt to identify two dimensions: SCB oriented towards individuals (SCB-I) and SCB oriented towards the organization (SCB-O). Further, by drawing on Christian et al. (2009)'s model of safety performance, we examined how distal (i.e. personality) and proximal (i.e. safety motivation and knowledge) person-related factors are associated with these behaviors. Structural equation modelling realized on a sample of 290 workers from a Belgian pharmaceutical company showed that the broader conscientiousness trait was related to both SCB-I and SCB-O, indirectly through safety motivation and knowledge, as would be predicted by Christian et al. In contrast, the altruism facet was directly related to SCB-I only. Results are discussed and practical implications considered.

High-Performance Work Systems and Well-Being: Mediating Role of Work-to-Family Interface.

Regarding the effects of High-Performance Work Systems (HPWS), we can draw two conclusions. First, existing studies on the effects of HPWS on employees' well-being at work are scarce. Second, few studies have considered the relationships between HPWS and work-to-family interface (i.e., work-to-family enrichment, WFE; and work-to-family conflict, WFC). Only one previous study conducted on a Portuguese sample (i.e., Carvalho & Chambel, 2016) has examined the relationships between these concepts in a comprehensive model. Our study aims to replicate one part of Carvalho and Chambel's model but also to extend previous work. We investigated a model of HPWS-employees' well-being at work (i.e., job engagement and job strain) relationships by considering work-to-family interface as a mediator. We surveyed 170 employees of a Belgian company. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling and bootstrapping method. WFE partially mediates the relationships between HPWS and job engagement, whereas WFC partially mediates the relationships between HPWS and job strain. Our study, confirming the results of Carvalho and Chambel (2016), highlights the important role of HPWS in the development of employees' well-being at work. Working in an organization where HPWS are applied leads employees to perceive more enrichment and less conflict between their work and family lives, making them more engaged in and less stressed by their work.

Employees' organizational identification and affective organizational commitment: an integrative approach.

Although several studies have empirically supported the distinction between organizational identification (OI) and affective commitment (AC), there is still disagreement regarding how they are related. Precisely, little attention has been given to the direction of causality between these two constructs and as to why they have common antecedents and outcomes. This research was designed to fill these gaps. Using a cross-lagged panel design with two measurement times, Study 1 examined the directionality of the relationship between OI and AC, and showed that OI is positively related to temporal change in AC, confirming the antecedence of OI on AC. Using a cross-sectional design, Study 2 investigated the mediating role of OI in the relationship between three work experiences (i.e., perceived organizational support, leader-member exchange, and job autonomy) and AC, and found that OI partially mediates the influence of work experiences on AC. Finally, Study 3 examined longitudinally how OI and AC combine in the prediction of actual turnover, and showed that AC totally mediates the relationship between OI and turnover. Overall, these findings suggest that favorable work experiences operate via OI to increase employees' AC that, in turn, decreases employee turnover.

Safety behavior: Job demands, job resources, and perceived management commitment to safety.

The job demands-resources model posits that job demands and resources influence outcomes through job strain and work engagement processes. We test whether the model can be extended to effort-related "routine" safety violations and "situational" safety violations provoked by the organization. In addition we test more directly the involvement of job strain than previous studies which have used burnout measures. Structural equation modeling provided, for the first time, evidence of predicted relationships between job strain and "routine" violations and work engagement with "routine" and "situational" violations, thereby supporting the extension of the job demands-resources model to safety behaviors. In addition our results showed that a key safety-specific construct 'perceived management commitment to safety' added to the explanatory power of the job demands-resources model. A predicted path from job resources to perceived management commitment to safety was highly significant, supporting the view that job resources can influence safety behavior through both general motivational involvement in work (work engagement) and through safety-specific processes.

Predictors and correlates of burnout in residents working with cancer patients.

There are few studies which have investigated variables associated with the development of burnout among residents working with cancer patients. The aim of this study is to identify variables leading to residents' burnout in order to develop effective interventions. Burnout was assessed with Maslach Burnout Inventory. Person- (i.e., emotional-focused coping) and work-related (i.e., changes in lack of organizational support index) variables explain 28% of the variance in changes in emotional exhaustion. Training programs may be improved by adding specific modules for residents, about problem-focused coping in interviewing patients, and for supervisors, about effective team management.

Stress and burnout in anaesthesia.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Recently, many researchers have been studying stress and burnout in anaesthesia. Some researchers have examined the effects of stress in the workplace. Others have identified some job characteristics that have an impact on anaesthetist's well-being. Yet, few studies use the same measure of stress and/or define the concept of stress in the same way, making comparison and aggregation of results difficult, and therefore minimizing the general impact of these research findings. RECENT FINDINGS: The following review focuses on the increasing recent research on stress and burnout in anaesthesia regarding the existing stress models and shows where the progress has been made, and where difference of opinion and divergence of approach remain. SUMMARY: From the referred studies, the review challenges the more practical problems of prevention of stress and burnout and provides some avenues for future investigations.