Challenges In Work Environment Research Articles

"We always felt psychologically unstable": A qualitative study of midwives' experiences in providing maternity care during the COVID-19 pandemic in Tanzania.

We explored midwives' experiences and challenges in providing maternity care during the period of the first surge of the COVID-19 pandemic in Dodoma. Phenomenological study design was used to explore midwives' experiences and challenges in providing maternity care during the COVID-19 pandemic in Tanzania. We conducted interviews with a total of 23 midwives, using semi-structured interviews and an audio recorder. Five focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted. To analyse the data, we used interpretive phenomenological thematic data analysis with NVivo software. To analyse templates, we followed a step-by-step process, starting with familiarizing ourselves with the data, followed by preliminary coding, organizing themes, developing an initial coding template, using the initial template, refining the template and finally applying it to the entire dataset. It was found that three themes and eight subthemes merged in the current study. The main themes were ① mental health distress, ② work environment challenges and ③ isolation of midwives by different groups. Reducing risk and protecting midwives from infectious diseases will improve the workforce, reduce the number of hospital stays, reduce the cost of hospital services, improve birth outcomes and indirectly improve family, community and national economies. Due to the system's failure to provide psychological support, protective environment and isolation rooms for confirmed or suspected cases put midwives at a higher risk of contracting the virus and had to work in a stressful environment. In addition to having the right tools, midwives must also receive emotional and psychological support in order to be at their best. The system must ensure that midwives are ready for uncertain times, such as pandemic infectious disease outbreaks, by providing protective work place environment such as personal protective equipment, psychological support and isolation room for confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Working Out Loud: an intervention study to test an agile learning method

PurposeToday’s unpredictable and fast-changing work environment challenges researchers and organizations to rethink learning. In contrast to traditional learning designs, new learning frameworks such as agile learning are more learner centered, integrated into the workplace and socially shaped. The purpose of this study is to examine Working Out Loud (WOL) as an agile learning method.Design/methodology/approachThis intervention study used a pre–post and six-month follow-up design (N = 507) to evaluate the effects of WOL on learners’ vigor (affective outcome), WOL behavior (behavioral outcome) and psychological empowerment (cognitive outcome) at work.FindingsThe authors compared the three longitudinal measurements using multilevel modeling. Results revealed that WOL could significantly increase learners’ WOL behavior and psychological empowerment at work in the post and six-month follow-up measurements. No effect was found on learners’ vigor at work.Originality/valueThis study highlights the need for research on new, more agile learning frameworks and discusses their relevance to the literature. Agile learning frameworks enable learners to be more autonomous and flexible, allowing them to better adapt to changing environmental demands.

Changes of physical and emotional wellbeing of public health workers during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract Background During the Covid-19 pandemic, healthcare workers’ mental health was affected by enormous challenges in work environment. The study aimed to analyze the physical and emotional wellbeing of the Lithuanian National Public Health Center (NPHC) workers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It assesses the relationship between self-assessed well-being and sociodemographic factors. Methods An online questionnaire including 8 statements on health and physical and 13 statements on emotional wellbeing was distributed to all 396 NPHC workers. Answers to the statements were provided on a 5-point Likert scale. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test, Mann-Whitney Test and Sperman's rank correlation were used for assessment on relationships. Results Our final sample included 343 (86,6%) NPHC workers. The self-assessment of health and physical wellbeing of the total 8 statements determined that 81.5% of respondents rated it worse during the pandemic (p < 0.001). The self-assessment of the emotional wellbeing of the total 13 statements showed that 84.7% of respondents rated it worse during the pandemic (p < 0.001). There were statistically significant relationships between self-assessment scores during the pandemic and public health workers’ age and work specificity. University degree workers showed significantly higher negative changes both in health and physical wellbeing (p < 0.001) and in emotional wellbeing (p = 0.001) compared with non-university degree workers. Conclusions The health and physical and emotional wellbeing of the workers of NPHC during the Covid-19 pandemic have significantly deteriorated. It suggests, that measures ensuring public health workers remain physically and mentally healthy during future crises such as COVID-19, are necessary. Key messages • Health and physical and emotional wellbeing of public health workers during the Covid-19 have deteriorated. • Measures that ensure public health workers remain healthy during future crisis are necessary.

The Challenges of Nursing Presence at the Patient's Bedside from the Perspective of Nurses: A Qualitative Study.

Presence is one of the vital aspects of nursing care that improves the outcome of treatment, self-care, satisfaction, loneliness, and anxiety of patients. The literature review shows that most of the studies have been conducted on the conceptual analysis of the presence of nurses, while there are many challenges for the presence of nurses at the bedside. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the perceived challenges of nurses from being at the bedside of patients. This is a qualitative descriptive study. Conventional inductive content analysis was used. Field notes and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with nineteen clinical nurses. Participants were selected from general and intensive care units. Data analysis was performed using Zhang and Wildemuth approach. Three categories emerged: (1) professional challenges with subcategories: Supervision of novice nurses, insufficient skills and cultural unfamiliarity, (2) Management challenges with subcategories: managers' negligence toward nurse's needs, Strategies of nursing managers, lack of medical staff, inadequate medical facilities, inappropriate planned visits and appointments, (3) work environment challenges with sub-categories: ward overcrowding and non-standard hospital environment. This study identified the challenges and obstacles of nurses' presence at the bedside in different dimensions from the perspective of clinical nurses. To increase the presence of nurses at the bedside, nursing managers should create a standardized work environment.

Deprescribing Medications that Increase the Risk of Falls in Older People: Exploring Doctors' Perspectives Using the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF).

Falls can lead to hospitalisation and death in older people. Polypharmacy is a major risk factor, and deprescribing fall-risk increasing drugs (FRIDs) is one of several possible important preventive measures. The objective of this study was to explore the factors that influence doctors when deprescribing FRIDs in a hospital setting. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with consultant geriatricians and hospital doctors experienced in dealing with patients aged 65 years or older, at a large academic teaching hospital (~ 1000 beds), Dublin, Ireland. The interviews were directed by an interview guide and audio recorded and transcribed verbatim, with subsequent thematic analysis in NVivo 12 software. A total of 18 participants were interviewed. Barriers to deprescribing included: insufficient time, incomplete patient records, changing medications initiated by other specialists and difficulties following up patients after discharge. Facilitators included: enhanced documentation through electronic patient records, the support of other healthcare professionals such as clinical pharmacists, and patients' engagement, which is considered essential for the success of the deprescribing process's outcome. Deprescribing FRIDs in older adults in the hospital setting is challenging. Implementation of the process in practice requires combined effort from stakeholders to tackle everyday work environment challenges. Future studies are required examining the clinical effect of the suggested interventions and exploring patients' involvement in deprescribing decisions.

Emerging Nurse Manager’s Resilience and Their Empowering Behavior during COVID-19

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated tensions and tested the resiliency of many nursing leaders. Resilience enables head nurses to cope with their work environment challenges, and maintain healthy psychological activity. Moreover, their empowering behavior represents the vehicle to transform traumatic events such as the COVID-19 pandemic to create a high-quality work environment. Aim: To explore the relationship between nurse manager resilience and empowering leader behavior during COVID-19. Method: This is a descriptive correlational study. The study subjects consisted of two groups: head nurses (44) and staff nurses (284). The study was conducted at Benisuef University Hospital. Two tools were used for collecting data; nurse managers’ resilience scale, and staff nurses’ perceived empowering behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic via questionnaire. Results: In total, 50% of nurse managers had high resilience skills levels, about one-third of them (34.1%) had moderate levels and only 15.9% had low resilience skills levels. Furthermore, with regard to empowering leadership behavior levels as perceived by staff nurses during COVID-19; 66.9% of them perceived it high, 29.2% reported a moderate level of empowering behavior, and only 3.9% perceived low levels. Finally, there was a highly statistically significant positive correlation between nurse manager’s resilience skills levels and staff nurses’ perception of empowering behavior during COVID-19. Conclusions: Half of the nurse managers had high resilience skills, and only 15.9% had low levels. Two-thirds of staff nurses perceived high levels of their nurse manager’s empowering behavior during COVID-19, in comparison to only 3.9% who perceived low levels. There was a highly statistically significant positive correlation between nurse manager’s resilience skills levels and perceived empowering behavior during COVID-19.

Gaza midwives' experiences in providing maternity care during COVID-19.

INTRODUCTIONThe Gaza Strip is densely populated. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a detrimental impact on global healthcare systems, and midwifery practices have transformed in maternity care settings. Our research aimed at understanding the Palestinian midwives’ experiences in providing maternity care in Gaza during the COVID-19 pandemic at Gaza European Hospital which was the only hospital providing care for people diagnosed with COVID-19.METHODSTo understand the phenomenon of interest, descriptive phenomenology was used. A purposive sample of eight midwives from the European Gaza Hospital was chosen. Between December 2020 and January 2021, semi-structured interviews were used in the data collection procedure. The collected data were analyzed using the Colaizzi approach.RESULTSThe investigation resulted in three main themes: emotionally overwhelmed, work environment challenges, and interpersonal relationship development.CONCLUSIONSMidwives shared both positive and negative experiences from their time working in the European Gaza Hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. They were confronted with negative emotions such as fear, stress, and anxiety, as well as environmental challenges. Despite this, they created a new interpersonal bond that was positively reflected. To sustain their psychological well-being, COVID-19 care workers require psychological support at work. A strong need exists for equipping the Maternity Department with the essential equipment and supplies to reduce the working environment load, as well as giving the necessary training to staff to be qualified enough to provide such crucial care.

Sustainable Knowledge Sharing Model for IT Agile Projects

In order to overcome work environment challenges and remain competitive in the market, organisations must adapt. An organisation's competitiveness can be improved through knowledge sharing; however, improvement without responsibility can have a negative impact on the sociotechnical environment which people cannot fully comprehend. According to researchers, business involvement in sustainable development goals remains minimal [51]. As a result, a sustainable consciousness is crucial to improve the business. In the project profession, sustainability is a business approach that balances the environmental, social, economic, and political aspects of project-based work to fulfil the demands of stakeholders without jeopardising or overburdening the availability of natural resources for future generations [33]. This study goes a step further and proposes a theoretical design that aims to ensure sustainable development during conceptual knowledge transfer in Agile IT projects.

Remote Working Environment Challenges in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic

As a result of the COVID 19 pandemic, employees have begun working remotely from home, which has resulted in new challenges in the work environment. The purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges of the remote work environment in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and to determine the level of these challenges according to the worker’s gender and job. This study was conducted on 11 Jordanian IT companies at the end of 2020. The intentional sample was used,125 valid questionnaires were used in the analysis. The results show that the respondents' perceptions of the challenges of the remote work environment in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic were high. There are also statistically significant differences at the level of significance (α≤0.05) for the level of challenges in the remote working environment according to gender (male/female) in favor of females and according to job level (supervisory or non-supervisory) in favor of non-supervisory jobs. To increase organisational performance, all parties—employees, families, and management—must cooperate to overcome the challenges of the remote work environment.

Process Evaluation of an Operational-Level Job Stress Intervention Aimed at Decreasing Sickness Absence among Public Sector Employees in Sweden.

Work-related sickness absence carries large societal costs, and interventions aimed at decreasing sickness absence need to be performed in an effective way. This study evaluated the implementation process of an operational-level job stress intervention, implemented between 2017 and 2018 in the public sector, by assessing the extent to which the allocated resources reached the intended target group, if the planned measures could be expected to address the relevant work environmental challenges, and if the planned measures were implemented. Data were collected from applications for funding in the intervention (n = 154), structured interviews (n = 20), and register data on sickness absence (n = 2912) and working conditions (n = 1477). Thematic analysis was used to classify the level of the work environmental challenges, the level and perspective of the suggested measures, and the “measure-to-challenge correspondence”. Overall, participating workplaces (n = 71) had both higher sickness absence (p = 0.01) and worse reported working conditions compared to their corresponding reference groups. A measure-to-challenge correspondence was seen in 42% of the measures, and individual-level measures were mostly suggested for organisational-level work environment challenges. Almost all planned measures (94%) were ultimately implemented. When performing operational-level interventions, managers and their human resource partners need support in designing measures that address the work environmental challenges at their workplace.

Which work environment challenges are top of mind among eldercare workers and how would they suggest to act upon them in everyday practice? Process evaluation of a workplace health literacy intervention

The purpose of this study was to identify challenges and action plans from 2.497 structured communication sessions between employee and supervisor and to gain insight into the processes of a quasi-experimental stepped wedge clustered intervention, which implemented workplace health literacy for reducing musculoskeletal pain among eldercare workers.Most challenges concerned staffing (17%), organisation of tasks (15%) and team work (14%). Most action plans concerned communication (18%), team-work (16%) and handling residents (14%). Half of the plans were solved at another level in the organisation than the challenge appeared. Actions planned on the individual level had the highest implementation rate (52%).The results underline the advantages in considering solutions to work environment and health challenges broadly at all levels in the organisation and the relevance of involving both the employee and the organisation/management in identifying and implementing solutions.

Employment Challenges among Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder from Their Parents’ Perspective in Saudi Arabia

The study aimed at identifying employment challenges among youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) from their parents’ perspective in Saudi Arabia. ASD Youth Employment Challenges Scale was applied to 85 parents of youth with ASD. Results concluded that employment challenges in Saudi Arabia are ASD-based challenges, ASD youth’s family challenges, work environment challenges, and social challenges. There were no statistically significant differences between the mean score of the responses of parents of youth with ASD to employment challenges scale due to parent’s gender, children’s gender, and children’s age. There were statistically significant differences between the mean score of the responses of parents of youth with ASD to employment challenges scale due to the variable of receiving financial support, in favor of those who do not receive support.

More challenging and complex responsibilities in current jobs

Abstract In this article, we give some remarks on how the recent evolution of work tasks and job responsibilities come in relation with challenging and high competitive work environment. Analyse is based on self-assessment of how job responsibilities and problem solving is perceived in the opinion of employed persons. Finally, many Romanian employed persons said that their responsibilities are more challenging and complex, especially in last years, demanding their great effort to adapt and fulfil objectives. These conclusions are important because if we have a correct interpretation of work environment challenges, evolutions and responsibilities, we can imagine the best alternatives to cope with the change in the workplace and improve adaptive performance.

Work environment impact scale: Testing the psychometric properties of the Swedish version

The Work Environment Impact Scale (WEIS) is an assessment that focuses on the fit between a person and his or her work environment. It is based on Kielhofner's Model of Human Occupation and designed to gather information on how clients experience their work environment. The aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Swedish version of the WEIS assessment instrument. In total, 95 ratings on the 17-item WEIS were obtained from a sample of clients with experience of sick leave due to different medical conditions. Rasch analysis was used to analyze the data. Overall, the WEIS items together cohered to form a single construct of increasingly challenging work environmental factors. The hierarchical ordering of the items along the continuum followed a logical and expected pattern, and the participants were validly measured by the scale. The three occupational therapists serving as raters validly used the scale, but demonstrated a relatively high rater separation index, indicating differences in rater severity. The findings provide evidence that the Swedish version of the WEIS is a psychometrically sound assessment across diagnoses and occupations, which can provide valuable information about experiences of work environment challenges.

Nurses’ work environment and intent to leave in Lebanese hospitals: Implications for policy and practice

BackgroundThe dual burden of nursing shortages and poor work environments threatens quality of patient care and places additional pressures on resource-stretched health care systems, particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR). There is a paucity of research in the EMR examining the quality of nurses’ work environment and its association to nurses’ intent to leave their jobs/countries. ObjectivesSystematically examine the characteristics of nurses’ work environment and their relation to nurses’ intent to leave their jobs within the context of Lebanon. A secondary objective is to assess the utility and validity of the NWI-R within the context of the EMR. MethodsA cross-sectional survey design was utilized to survey a total of 1793 registered nurses in 69 Lebanese hospitals. The survey instrument included questions on nurses’ background, hospital characteristics, intent to leave, and the Revised Nurse Working Index (NWI-R). Data analysis included descriptive statistics for demographic characteristics, t-test and ANOVA to assess differences in agreement scores, and a multinomial logistic regression model to predict intent to leave. Thematic analysis of open-ended questions was utilized to extract themes that fit under issues relating to nurses’ work environment in Lebanese hospitals. ResultsThe NWI-R subscale with the lowest mean score related to control. Younger nurses had lower scores on organizational support and career development. Regression analysis revealed that for every 1 point score decrease on career development there was a 93% increase in likelihood of reporting intent to leave country. Likewise, for every 1 point score decrease on participation there was an observed 51% and 53% increase in likelihood of reporting intent to leave country and hospital, respectively. Findings show that hospital characteristics (size, accreditation status and presence of a recruitment and retention strategy) were significantly associated with NWI-R subscales. ConclusionsParticipation, control and career development were key work environment challenges contributing to the attrition on nurses from Lebanese hospitals. Although some of the issues identified are country specific, others would certainly be relevant to other countries in the EMR. Addressing these challenges would require a strong and coordinated action from governments, professional bodies, policy makers and health managers.

Understanding Coordination Challenges in Urban Firefighting: A Study of Critical Incident Reports

This paper explores the central role played by coordination during fire incident response. Following preliminary investigations based on other methods, the authors analyzed a corpus of 29 critical incident reports produced by one fire department's safety services. Urban firefighting is a complex domain in which members' activities need to be highly synchronized in order to reach common operational and safety goals. As the work environment challenges the capacity of firefighters to coordinate efficiently, coordination breakdowns might occur, creating safety threats as role interdependencies become difficult to manage.