Is ‘Meaningfulness’ a General Mediating Factor? The Salutogenic Revolution of Question-Setting in Health Science and Occupational Psychology

Abstract

According to our earlier researches -stating that on the one hand in the career competency of the examined subjects, out of the Core Job Dimensions present in the Hackman-oldham Job Characteristic Model, only Meaningfulness (task significance) contributed significantly to inducing favourable Personal and Work outcomes, and on the other hand, among the components of the Sense of Coherence, portrayed as a health and well-being factor in Antonovsky's Salutogenic Model, it was Meaningfulness that had a preeminent role -we asked the question: to what extent can this positive effect of Meaningfulness be further generalized? That is, regarding women in Hungary who choose a healthcare career, whether Meaningfulness felt within their job motivates them with a significant enough force to be a counter-effective factor to job abandonment (especially frequent in Hungary), to persevere despite the difficult circumstances. From a methodical point of view, we completed a quasi-case study in the circle of 158 female students taking healthcare courses and 79 women working in healthcare for at least five years. As control groups we used the age-and sex-standardized random samples of non-healthcare students as well as workers. Here, Meaningfulness within the Sense of Coherence proved to be the significant factor for staying in the healthcare profession. Practical conclusion of the research: during the training in healthcare courses, an emphasis has to be laid upon developing the Sense of Meaningfulness in the person, by means of establishing life-career models, personal career design, and creating the chances of a healthier lifestyle.Keywords: meaningfulness, salutogenic approach, sense of coherence, nurse education, manageability, comprehensibility, paramedical training, nurse turnover, female students, female employee

Job-related meaningfulness moderates the association between over-commitment and emotional exhaustion in nurses

“…Moreover, a transparent definition of an institution's interests, conceptions, and value‐oriented leadership may support employees’ perceptions of job‐related meaningfulness (Auinger, Böhnisch, & Stummer, ; Brunetto, Shacklock, Teo, & Farr‐Wharton, ). Differences in perceived meaningfulness may explain why identical occupational demands induce different stress perceptions and differences in emotional exhaustion (Steger et al., ; Varga et al., ). Hence the following research hypothesis was put forward :

Perception of job‐related meaningfulness is a moderator of the relationship between occupational demands and emotional exhaustion in nurses.

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“…Schaufeli and Bakker (2010) connect engagement with employees' adequate organizational commitment. Organizational commitment is positively related to employees' perception of meaningfulness about their own work (Varga et al, 2012). In turn, experienced meaningfulness is fostered by a fit between organizational and employee's values (Stummer, 2006;Tims, Derks, & Bakker, 2016).…”

Salutogenic nursing education: A summative review

“…Cultural diversity will present challenges for nursing education to address such as first generation college students, males, students from educationally underserved areas and a vast array of cultural beliefs, behavior and practices. For example, the ability of a nursing student to make a difference in their patients' lives may have a buffering effect on the stresses of nursing school via meaningfulness [59] . Attempts to improve an individual's sense of coherence would have to consider exploration of the environmental milieu into.…”

“…A popular axiom states nursing requires a special kind of person that may relate to a life orientation. Many students choose nursing for altruistic reasons relating to the SOC concept of meaningfulness [59] . Nursing is a stressful profession requiring multiple skill sets and learned principles being applied differently in endless contexts among various people.…”

“…This seems to relate both to manageability and comprehensibility. One study found that health care students' SOC grew during education whereas some studies in medical students found SOC decreased [51,59] . Examining the concept of professional fulfillment as a GRR in building SOC is worthy of investigation and may support the use of hospital based clinical learning from a salutogenic perspective.…”