Identifying patterns of recovery experiences and their links to psychological outcomes across one year

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to examine patterns of recovery experiences (i.e., psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery and control during off-job time) and their links to psychological outcomes (job burnout, work engagement and sleep problems) across 1year. The study is based on 1-year longitudinal data collected among Finnish employees (n=274) using questionnaires. First, patterns of recovery experiences, that is, subgroups of employees with unique and distinctive patterns of mean-level stability and change in recovery experiences across 1year were identified using Latent Profile Analysis. Second, differences in psychological outcomes between the patterns identified were investigated by means of ANOVA/ANCOVA for repeated measures. Five patterns of recovery experiences were identified. Over 70% of the employees belonged to a pattern with reasonably high stable levels of all four recovery experiences across the 1-year follow-up. This pattern seemed to suffer least from job burnout and sleep problems. Of the four remaining patterns, those with experiences of high levels of mastery and control during off-job time had highest work engagement, and among those with decreasing levels of all recovery experiences job exhaustion increased across time. Patterns of recovery experiences play a significant role in maintaining long-term psychological well-being.