Psychological Distress and Health-Related Quality of Life in Public Sector Personnel.

Christina S Malfa,Apostolos Vantarakis,Konstantinos Assimakopoulos,Philippos Gourzis,Katerina Karaivazoglou

doi:10.3390/ijerph18041865

Abstract

Background: This study has assessed health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and psychological distress between public sector professional groups. Methods: Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) were administered to healthcare personnel, schoolteachers, and municipality and regional personnel in the region of Western Greece. Mean scores on all SF-36 dimensions and HADS were compared among these professional groups as well as with the Greek national norms to assess if there were significant differences between our study sample and the general population. Results: Healthcare personnel reported significantly lower SF-36 scores than teachers and municipality employees. Women reported poorer HRQoL than men on all SF-36 dimensions. This overall low score for health care workers masks the fact that male health care workers, primarily medical doctors, actually scored better than women, primarily nurses and auxiliary personnel. Average mean scores on all SF-36 dimensions reported by nurses and auxiliary personnel in healthcare were considerably lower than the ones from employees in all other occupational types. The impact on HRQoL observed mainly in vitality, social functioning and mental health was important. Many participants have shown psychological burden and depression. Conclusions: The health inequalities among healthcare employees are significant. This study is important to suggest taking measures for improving the HRQoL of health workers.

Highlights

In modern societies, labor occupies a major part of people’s time and defines the quality of everyday living through type of occupation, income, working hours, routines, and professional relationships [1,2,3,4]
Stress is often aroused by stressors, stimuli in the environment that require an adaptive response from the individual
Personnel were working in public health, public education, and employees within administrative sectors of municipal and regional governments

Summary

Introduction

Labor occupies a major part of people’s time and defines the quality of everyday living through type of occupation, income, working hours, routines, and professional relationships [1,2,3,4]. Professional status is associated with people’s well-being, while unemployment has been repeatedly linked to medical and psychological morbidity [5,6]. There are several studies which reveal that professional insecurity and unstable working environment may lead to increased medical and psychological difficulties and adversely affect people’s well-being [6,8,9,10,11,12]. Certain professional groups, including healthcare and teaching personnel, appear even more vulnerable to work-related stress and professional burn-out and must cope with increased medical and psychosocial burden. Stress is often aroused by stressors, stimuli in the environment that require an adaptive response from the individual. Stressors can be extra-organizational, organizational, task-related, or individual [13]. Occupational stress, and its symptoms such as feeling irritable, sleep disorders, hypertension, anxiety, and chronic cynicism, is a syndrome

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