How Does the Assessment of Work Organization during the COVID-19 Pandemic Relate to Changes in the Well-Being of Health System Workers?

Abstract

In the case of various emergencies, especially pandemics, healthcare workers are faced with disproportionate pressures. Organizational support plays a significant role in protecting the psychological and physical health of healthcare workers. This interdisciplinary research aims to determine how changes in the physical and psychological well-being of healthcare and pharmacy workers during the first wave of the COVID-19 lockdown are related to work organization factors that support safety and stability. A quantitative research strategy was applied in the research. Data from an electronic survey assessed the changes in the physical and psychological well-being of healthcare and pharmacy workers during the lockdown period and the organizational factors supporting safety and stability. The sample of the quantitative research consisted of 967 employees of healthcare institutions and pharmacies in Lithuania. This research broadens the concept of organizational factors and provides data on their interaction with the changes of employee well-being indicators in a pandemic situation. It was found that positive changes in the evaluation of physical as well as psychological well-being during the COVID-19 lockdown could be consistently predicted by all the analyzed safety and stability supporting organizational factors that were found to be associated with subjective physical well-being and psychological well-being even when adjusting for the effect of socio-demographic factors (gender, age, work field, and specialty). The identification and proper management of organizational factors was significant for the psychological and physical well-being of healthcare workers during the lockdown period. It was found that all estimates of safety and stability supporting organizational factors during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown were positively related and could act as protective factors to the subjective physical and psychological well-being of healthcare and pharmacy workers.

Managing during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A cross‐sectional study of health care workers' perceived organizational support and its consequences on their compassion, resilience and turnover intention

“…Hospitals and health care facilities demonstrated impressive service coordination and management at the local level and in coordinating their activities with the higher authorities and crises management committees (Zaher et al, 2021). Given these efforts to handle the pandemic, the support that organizations provided for workers, especially HCWs, ultimately impacted their ability to cope with their pandemic-related uncertainties, insecurities and threats (Chatzittofis et al, 2021;De los Santos & Labrague, 2021;Kubilienė et al, 2021;Xiu et al, 2019). Despite these extensive efforts, it is common to find some negative impacts on the HCWs due to the pandemic's new experience and its speedily changing nature, in addition to differing leadership styles and interventions adopted at different management levels (Nangia & Arora, 2021).…”

“…Since the role of the organizational support inevitably varied globally, local studies are necessary to understand specific cases (Kubilienė et al, 2021; Rangachari & Woods, 2020; Zhou et al, 2021), and the current paper explores this issue within the Emirati context. However, this study is not particular to UAE and can serve as a background for transcultural comparisons among different geographical areas, since such studies are lacking in the Gulf Cooperation Council, and in the Middle East and North Africa in general, despite the vast and diverse array of HCWs' cultures and health care organizations in this region.…”

The Interactive Effect of COVID-19 Risk and Hospital Measures on Turnover Intentions of Healthcare Workers: A Time-Lagged Study

“…Infectious diseases are a major threat to the health and wellbeing of healthcare workers, which include doctors, nurses, and paramedics who are directly dealing with COVID-19 patients as they are at higher risk of infection due to frequent interaction with affected patients [1][2][3]. According to Chan-Yeung [4], almost one-fifth of the victims during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak were healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses, and paramedics staff.…”

Significance of organizational health features during the COVID-19 pandemic for the well-being of Lithuanian healthcare workers

“…Covid-19 pandemic required rapid and effective organizational change: decisions made at both state and internal organizational levels affected the effectiveness of pandemic management. Many studies on this topic point to the significant role of organizational culture in the management of the Covid-19 pandemic: organizational support, caring for its employees, promoting information, leadership, and mutual assistance are the organizational factors that help meet the challenges of the pandemic ( Shanafelt T. et al, 2020 ; Kubilienė et al, 2021 ). The main aim of our research was to analyze subjective pandemic-related difficulties and challenges in work organization according to healthcare workers.…”

“…Research data confirms the vital role of the organization on an employee’s health during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Preti et al, 2020 ). A study by Kubilienė et al (2021) pointed out that organizational factors supporting safety and stability may have acted as elements protective of physical and psychological well-being during the first wave of the COVID-19 lockdown among healthcare and pharmacy workers. Administrative staff have a key role to play in monitoring and supporting the mental health of their staff ( Kinman et al, 2020 ).…”