AUTHOR=Scheel Tabea Eleonore , Bendixen Lydia , Procházka Jakub , Acquadro Maran Daniela 

TITLE=Working during the COVID-19 pandemic: Demands, resources, and mental wellbeing

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1037866

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1037866

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between working conditions at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic (spring 2020) and employee’s mental well-being. According to the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, work intensification, increased difficulty in accomplishing work tasks, heightened risk of infection by COVID-19 and increasingly working from home may detrimentally relate to irritation. However, personal and job resources (e.g., occupational self-efficacy, social support) may buffer. Data from 680 employees from four European countries were analyzed by means of path analyses and polynomial regression.
Work intensification was significantly positively associated with cognitive and affective irritation; other job demands were not. However, working from home before and during the pandemic related to higher cognitive irritation. None of the moderators was of meaningful significance. Reducing work intensification as well as enduring home office seem to be crucial for interventions.