Abstract
The Job Demands-Control-Support (JDCS) model has seldom been tested in palliative care settings, and occupational well-being of palliative care professionals has never before been investigated in Croatia. Our aim was therefore to fill that gap by testing the JDCS model among Croatian nurses providing palliative care. More specifically, we wanted to see how job demands, job control, and social support at work affect occupational well-being outcomes (i.e. job satisfaction and burnout dimensions of exhaustion and disengagement from work) in terms of the model’s iso-strain and buffer hypotheses. This cross-sectional study included 68 nurses working in various palliative care institutions across Croatia, who answered our online questionnaire. Overall, the nurses did not report high levels of burnout or low job satisfaction. The only significant effect was that of job control on job satisfaction (β=0.38; P<0.01) and disengagement (β=-0.45; P<0.01), while job demands and social support at work had a significant interaction effect on the burnout dimension of exhaustion (β=0.39; P<0.01) in the sense that high social support at work buffered the increase in exhaustion associated with high job demands. These findings suggest that interventions aimed at increasing perceived job control and social support at the workplace could improve occupational well-being of nurses working in palliative care.
Highlights
The Job Demands-Control-Support (JDCS) model has seldom been tested in palliative care settings, and occupational well-being of palliative care professionals has never before been investigated in Croatia
Palliative care profession is generally considered as highly stressful and subject to burnout, and nurses are considered to be in greater risk of developing the burnout syndrome and suffering other adverse health and well-being consequences than other palliative care professionals [15,16,17,18]
We found no evidence of a three-way interaction with JDCS dimensions
Summary
The Job Demands-Control-Support (JDCS) model has seldom been tested in palliative care settings, and occupational well-being of palliative care professionals has never before been investigated in Croatia. We wanted to see how job demands, job control, and social support at work affect occupational well-being outcomes (i.e. job satisfaction and burnout dimensions of exhaustion and disengagement from work) in terms of the model’s iso-strain and buffer hypotheses This cross-sectional study included 68 nurses working in various palliative care institutions across Croatia, who answered our online questionnaire. Besides burnout and related mental health problems such as anxiety or depression [8], other serious negative consequences of nurses’ prolonged exposure to intensive stressors at work are decreased job satisfaction and high turnover intention. Palliative care profession is generally considered as highly stressful and subject to burnout, and nurses are considered to be in greater risk of developing the burnout syndrome and suffering other adverse health and well-being consequences than other palliative care professionals [15,16,17,18]
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